


Peculiar Circumstances

by alittlelesspain



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-22 13:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesspain/pseuds/alittlelesspain
Summary: Alex falls ill. Not from an alien attack, or from a fight. Just plain old human sickness, and it happens to be terminal.Astra finds an unusual cure for it. She does it for Kara, she says, but things escalate, and two people who were once enemies, and then wary allies at best, find themselves becoming something else entirely.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [Sralinchen](http://sralinchen.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this entire fic. She's the absolute best beta a person could have.

**Astra |** To love something that death can touch

Humans are fragile.

They’re fragile, short-sighted, and purposefully blind to their own mortality. All this Astra has always known, first with an unwarranted sense of superiority, then as a neutral fact, and finally - in _very_ recent years - as a cause of incessant worry.

Still, when Alex Danvers collapses in the middle of what should have been a routine DEO briefing meeting, it’s as much a shock to her, as to everyone else.

* * *

 

Astra is not there to see Alex collapse, because she really only ever heads into the DEO in the case of emergencies. As such, the news comes to her via a distraught Kara, who flies into the converted warehouse that Astra calls home, and sinks into her arms, sobbing the news out.

Illness. Not an injury, or something Alex incurred in the line of work. Just... illness, developed from a genetic vulnerability, and made more severe by the fact that it had gone neglected for so long. In the midst of Kara’s explanation, Astra learns a new word, something entirely alien to her understanding of biology. _Terminal._

The word runs a chill down Astra’s spine, even though she should be an unaffected party here.

“You know,” Kara says, when she’s calmer, “I’ve always been afraid of losing her, in so many ways.”

She sniffles again, and burrows closer into Astra’s chest.

“She’s so reckless, and she never takes care of herself. I was always afraid of accidents, or even just of her dying of old age, and leaving me behind.”

Her body shakes against Astra.

“I never thought-” Her voice cracks. “I mean, something like this never even occurred to me. Not so soon.”

“Of course not,” Astra murmurs, at a loss for something better to say, and draws her niece in closer.

It should mean nothing at all to her. Alex has looked at her with nothing but suspicion, even when Astra had finally turned herself into the DEO, after being rescued from Cadmus. She’s aloof even during the times when Kara forces them to be in the same room together, in the spirit of family bonding.

It’s natural that Astra should be entirely unbothered by this news. And yet, she isn’t.

Because of the undeniable truth that Kara is going to lose her family. She is going to lose - and Astra can admit this now, albeit with a bitter sense of loss - the person that she’s closest to. As with Alura, she’s going to lose someone else, whose place in her life Astra can never replace.

When faced with that choice, Astra’s decision is easy to make.

* * *

 

It takes Astra two weeks to hack into Alura’s holographic database without the DEO noticing, and one more week to figure out how to access the restricted files on the project codenamed “Yuda Kal”. It takes another whole month for her to study the research, and adapt it to what she needs it to do.

In the meantime, though the doctors’ appraisals of Alex’s condition all give her at least a few months before noticeable deterioration owing to the disease, Kara delivers each update to Astra as tearfully as if Alex is liable to drop dead the following week. Astra doesn’t blame her, distraught as her niece is.

For her part, Astra works on her new research as if Alex’s demise really is so soon, trusting not even Kara with her final goal, in case she might disappoint her niece by not achieving it.

It turns out the haste is a good decision, because Kara stumbles in only a week later to tell her that Alex has slipped into a coma.

Then, Astra knows, it is now or never. She works feverishly through the next few days, forgetting to sleep or eat. She pores over research papers and works out plans with a degree of concentrated focus that she had not set her mind to before on anything other than the construction of the Myriad program. After five more days of this intensive process, it takes her another night to break into the DEO’s medical ward without setting off the security alarms, and accessing the patient kept under the strictest watch.

The next morning, Astra wakes up with a light fever, and stumbles on her way out of bed. That’s how she knows that she has succeeded in her plan.

* * *

 

**Alex |** Changed for the better

A long time ago, before she had learnt about Krypton, before Clark had met her father, before Kara had even entered her life, Alex had been an avid surfer.

Slicing confidently through the waves, under a summer that never seemed to end, had been enjoyable enough. Her favorite parts, though, were the times when she had gone too fast, on too dangerous a wave, and almost lost control. The moments before the crash, when gravity forgot to work... it had been almost like flying.

And then, more often than not, young Alex had wiped out. Sometimes without incident, and sometimes catastrophically, with ten-foot waves crashing over her head, while she balled herself inwards and tried to stave off panic. Coming on the heels of the almost-flight, it was a deadly reminder of mortality.

Not that it had ever stopped Alex from picking her surfboard right back up, and venturing out into the ocean again, ready to catch the next good wave.

When Alex wakes up, eight nights after she had first slipped into her coma, it feels like she’s breaking through the waves after another such wipeout. She wakes up gasping for air, gulping in huge lungfuls while she stares around wildly, trying to make anything out in the near-total darkness. Then, she realizes that she’s bundled up under layers of sheets, and tied to a myriad of tubes, and that just spikes the panic up even further.

“Easy, easy!” says a voice, a rattled one clearly trying to put on a veneer of calm so as not to spook her, “It’s okay, Alex. You’re in the med bay.”

Alex bats away the hands trying to soothe her on instinct, before calming down, as she looks to her side, into the worried blue eyes of her sister.

“Kara,” she says, trying to pitch her voice back to a normal cadence. “What am I- what are you-”

She stops, trying to figure out what she’s even trying to ask, and Kara jumps in.

“You were thrashing around in your bed,” she says, biting her lip and looking tentative, “And then you just started gasping, and woke up. Do you remember anything, from before?”

Alex shakes her head, which feels weirdly like it’s encased in plastic.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” she murmurs, trying to remember. “My head was hurting, and I went to the med bay to lie down for a few hours, and then-”

“Then you passed out,” Kara says, as she trails off in confusion. “That was eight days ago, Alex. Dr. Hamilton said it was a coma.”

If she had expected Alex to be shocked at that statement, it doesn’t happen. Instead,

Alex is staring down at her own hands, transfixed.

They’re unblemished. There’d been scars there before, souvenirs from numerous fights and missions. Then, she’d been poked with about a hundred needles, since this fucking thing started, and those had left their mark on her too.

Marks which seem to have disappeared overnight.

She looks up at Kara, who doesn’t seem as surprised at this.

“What’s going on, Kara?”

Her sister swallows, still looking oddly tentative and reluctant.

“Doctor Hamilton called me over,” she says. “We’ve been monitoring you 24/7 ever since you slipped into the coma, and it was looking really bad for a couple of days there-” her face caves away, into familiar lines of devastation “- and then, today, your levels went back to normal, practically overnight.”

Alex stares at her, and then back down at her hands.

“What?” she asks, feeling numb.

“It’s your cells,” Kara says. “They seem to have undergone a transformation, but it’s _weird,_ Alex. I looked at the reports myself, and it doesn’t make any sense, unless-”

She trails off, and Alex looks at her sharply.

“ _Unless what, Kara?”_

“The files,” Kara says, slowly. “The files that Mom sent in the hologram, about the bioengineering research done by Kryptonian scientists. Remember when we were going over the database, and found out that there was an entire section on that?”

“But, we couldn’t access those,” Alex says. “They were behind an additional security wall.”

Kara nods. “Right. And we couldn’t crack it.”

There’s a curious inflection to her words, that makes Alex stare at her harder.

“Are you saying that you think someone else did?”

“Maaaaaybe?” Kara draws out.

The strange reluctance on her face grows even more pronounced, and that’s how Alex knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt. There are very few people in the world with the expertise to manipulate Kryptonian technology, and among them, one stands out as the obvious suspect, and she’d be the exact person that Kara would be reluctant to hand over.

“Astra.” she says, not really expecting to be contradicted. “You think Astra is behind this.”

Kara sighs, and suddenly looks older than her years, as she massages her temples.

“She asked me to get her some research files from the hologram a couple months ago,” she mumbles. “Some standard low-security research files, so I put them on the flash drive she gave me. And I know she’s been working 24-7 on something for the last couple of weeks, something that she wouldn’t even tell me about.”

“Kara!”

Kara groans, sinking her face into her hands. “ _I know._ I get it now. There must have been a program piggybacking on the drive. I didn’t think-”

She sags, and looks so dejected that Alex almost relents. Almost.

“She’s planning something,” she mutters. “You realize that, right? She’s planning something, and this is the opening move. What was in those files, Kara?”

“I don’t know!” Kara says. “It’s not like anyone ever bothered to tell me anything, even back on Krypton.”

She looks angry, almost as angry as when she had lashed out at the hologram of Alura with her heat-vision, and Alex backs off.

“Ok,” she says, in a calming tone. “If we don’t know, then I’m going to the source.”

“We don’t know for sure it was her,” Kara says, looking reluctant.

Undeterred, Alex rips out every tube running into her, ignoring the way that Kara winces. Alex feels nothing at all as she disconnects them, just an oddly numb sensation. It does nothing at all to quell the vague suspicions now running around in her brain.

“Alex, let’s think this through,” Kara says.

“She’s got something planned,” Alex repeats, stalking over to the rack that her spare uniform has been haphazardly thrown over. “You might not want to face what Astra is like, Kara, but I do. She wouldn’t do something like this without an ulterior motive.”

“She’s not like that!” Kara protests, and then sighs at Alex’s glare. “Not anymore, at least.”

Alex shakes her head.

“I gave her a chance,” she says. “She failed, and now you want me to believe that she’s got good intentions behind this?”

Kara sighs again.

“Let’s at least consult J’onn first.”

“No.” Alex buttons the rest of her uniform up, and stomps her way into her boots.

“Alex, _wait.”_

But Alex is already striding away, throwing the doors to the med bay open, and veering out of the path of every nurse that tries to stop her.

* * *

 

**Astra |** I was dying when we met

Astra is alone in the warehouse, when Alex storms in. Storm really is the word for it, with the woman banging the door open so hard that it teeters on its hinges.

_“What did you do, Astra?”_

“You are not allowed to barge in here.” Astra snaps, striding over to her, and throwing a stalling hand in her path.

Alex flicks the hand away, in what she probably intends to be a throwaway gesture. What actually happens is that Astra gets thrown back, easily clearing half the width of the place and almost crashing into one of the walls.

She’s back on her feet quickly, ready for a fight, but any idea she might have had of returning the blow dies when she sees Alex look from her hand to her, absolutely shocked.

“What the... what just...?”

Astra makes a show of dusting off her suit, more to buy herself time than for any other reason. “It looks like the increased strength is already manifesting. A good sign.”

Alex’s surprise lasts only moments before she’s flaring up at Astra again.

“What did you do to me?”

“Saved your life,” Astra says, unblushingly.

“ _Saved?”_ Alex’s look is one of gaping outrage.

“You were wasting away in a bed just a day ago.” Astra snaps, stung. “What do you care to call the stark difference between that and-” she gestures at Alex standing before her “-this?”

There’s a deep breath inhaled as if Alex wanted to snap something right back, but controlled herself at the last minute.

“The files,” she starts again, after a while. “Kara said you downloaded some files from the hologram. That had something to do with this, doesn’t it?”

Astra would laugh, if the situation weren’t so fraught.

“So, you’ve figured that much out already.” she murmurs, watching Alex, and wondering how much more she has deduced. “Tell me then, do you know why those particular files were kept behind an additional layer of security?”

“I don’t care! I just want to know what you did to me.”

“Kryptonian cells didn’t naturally evolve to be photovoltaic, or to be virtually immune to disease, Alex.” Astra says, with really more patience than such a tone deserves. “It was the result of centuries of bioengineering, of tweaking the Kryptonian genome to do what our scientists wanted it to do. Kara might have told you something about it, but what she has told you merely scratches the surface.”

Alex, despite all her anger, is staring at her with concentration now, as if scientific curiosity has bypassed the walls of defense put up by her anger.

“But how,” she starts, before biting her lip and seeming to regroup. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Only that the bioengineering was not spurred on for... egalitarian ends.” Astra says, observing her and picking her words carefully. “More often than not, it was intended to benefit only part of the population or other, in wars and political maneuvering.”

She watches Alex shift in place impatiently and tries to devise a way to compress the entire stem and tide of Krypton’s history, the tumult that had eventually given way to peace, to explain the chaotic and large scale experimentations that had transformed Kryptonian physiology from what it had once been.

“I suppose the reasons don’t matter,” she says finally, choosing to bypass it altogether. “What matters is the end result, which is that the modifications were devised from the start to be easily replicable, reversible, and manipulable.”

Alex scrubs her face, looking overwhelmed.

“Clark.” she says, screwing up her face as if trying to remember something. “A long time ago, he came to my dad for help, he said Lois had been affected with something that made her grow Kryptonian-like powers.”

“Ah, my nephew,” Astra says, and her lips can’t help twisting, because there’s a bitter mockery of a familial relationship. “Yes, I do remember Kara telling me about that incident. But, that was temporary. I made sure that these changes are permanent.”

Alex stares at her, as if still not grasping the entire situation. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to. Astra though, has never been one for lingering on her way to the point.

“I programmed the biological enhancements into you,” she explains. “They needed modifications, of course, to accommodate for the differences in the human genome. In essence though, you are a Kryptonian now, biologically similar to Kara.”

“Like Kara?” Alex echoes, glaring at Astra suspiciously again.

 _Oh, Rao._ Astra looks away, stifling a sigh. She should have known that this woman, of all the humans, would catch the one point Astra would rather not have disclosed.

“But-” It’s clear from Alex’s face that her brain is working furiously. “When I hit you, you fell back so easily. I shouldn’t have been able to do that, not to you.”

Comprehension is dawning on her face, or perhaps just horror.

“The research files did not contain exact instructions on the details of the modifications,” Astra says, stonily. “I had to reverse engineer them, using a test subject to break away each successive modification, and study how each step in the process was done. Of course, the course of the study involved breaking away all the modifications done to the test subject.”

Alex stares at her.

“So, kind of like a trade,” she summarizes.

Astra tries not to wince, at centuries of dedicated research being summarized in one such word.

“Yes,” she says, instead, her lips twisting around the word.

“Who was the trade, Astra?” Alex asks, and she’s breathing very hard, the way extremely agitated people trying to stay collected do.

Astra crosses her arms, defensive. “It’s not as if I had many options, agent. There are only a handful of Kryptonians left on this planet.”

“Who was the trade?” Alex repeats, low and intent.

Astra purses her lips. “It was me, although you seem to have guessed that already.”

Whether she really had known or not, Alex sags backwards, and her breath leaves her in a lengthy exhale. Astra stares at her, and Alex stares down at her hands, swallowing.

“So, I’m going to be... Kryptonian,” she says, after a while, still looking down.

“You don’t seem too happy.” Astra drawls out, miffed by the still apprehensive look on the woman’s face, “I thought you humans were all so enthralled with such powers, judging by your popular culture, and all the media that Kara pesters me to consume.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Alex says, as if she’d interpreted that as an insult, “I didn’t ask for this.”

Astra shrugs. “It’s too late, now. You were dying, Agent Danvers. I fixed it.”

“Without asking me!”

“You were unconscious.” Astra says, coldly. “When should I have asked you? In the afterlife?”

That gets her a frustrated growl in response.

“What’s your real plan, Astra?” Alex moves closer to her, encroaching on her personal space as if that would intimidate her.

“For tonight? I had a night of reading planned, until you barged in,” Astra says, unimpressed.

Alex persists. “Am I some kind of test subject? Is this another one of your experiments? Why would you do something like this, out of the blue?”

Astra lifts her eyebrows. “What other course of action would you have suggested? No manmade treatment would have stemmed the tide of your illness fast enough, but part of the Kryptonian modifications is a self-regulating nanobot mechanism specifically designed to combat the growth and spread of destructive cells. If I hadn’t done what I did, you would not be here tonight, and Kara wouldn’t have been very happy with that.”

Alex’s eyes narrow, skeptical.

“Oh, now you’re doing this for her?” she asks. “The same niece that you once opposed?”

At that, Astra’s temper flares. “You have no right to speak of anything between Kara and I!”

“I was the one who had to pick her pieces up when you showed up and started attacking her out of the blue,” Alex hisses, stepping back closer. “You think just because we have Kara mediating between us now, just because she wants us to get along, that I’m just going to trust you?”

“Oh, rest assured I think nothing of that sort,” Astra says.

She advances on Alex and for a wonder, the woman actually retreats, until Astra has her backed up right against the door.

“You said it yourself, Agent Danvers. Kara may be my niece, and you may be her sister, but we are nothing at all to each other. _Good night.”_

With that she locks Alex out in the cold night air, in the chill she had never before been able to feel.

* * *

 

**Alex |** Take me to your sunsets

Alex gasps awake in the early hours of the morning, clawing at thin air, until she realizes that she’s floating two feet above the bed.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck f-”

Flailing and cursing, she windmills her arms around until her body floats back down hitting the bed with a soft thump. Alex simply stays there, making no move to get the covers around her again, as she stares up at the ceiling and tries to get her heart rate back to normal.

That’s the third time this week. She’s never been afraid of heights, but it’s another thing entirely to wake up from sleep to find yourself levitating in thin air.

It’s not just in her sleep, either. In her last mission, she’d found herself running to catch up with a fleeing perp, and found herself suddenly airborne, as her flight skills kicked in unexpectedly. Improvisation skills had allowed her not to fuck up too badly, but it had still been cause enough for J’onn to give her the rest of the week off, to “get yourself under control, Agent Danvers.”

Which is incredibly unfair, Alex thinks moodily, to blame her for Astra’s not at all well-thought-out decision. Had the woman even thought of the consequences, when she had done it?

Had she ever considered _Alex?_

“Alex!”

Her sister bursts into Alex’s blearly line of vision, wide-eyed and with her hair flying in all directions.

“Kara, what the fuck?” Alex asks, as she jumps and almost flies off the bed again.

“It’s just, your heartbeat went up,” Kara says, sheepishly, after looking around Alex’s bedroom and clearly seeing nothing amiss. “I thought I’d drop by, in case something had happened.”

“Ugh, are you still monitoring that?” Alex asks, scrubbing her eyes.

Ever since her sickness, Kara seems to have become exponentially more predictable in her worrywart behaviour, just happening to fly by her apartment at all hours of the day. Alex finds herself frequently tempted to buy leaded paint and cover every inch of her room with it, just to make a statement.

“What happened?” Kara asks, settling by the side of her bed.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” Alex murmurs. “Go back home.”

“You yelled,” Kara says. “I heard you.”

“I’m fine,” Alex repeats. “It was just... just a bad dream. I’m going back to sleep.”

Kara is silent for a few moments, her feet tapping against the bed frame, and then-

“It’s ok if you’re not fine. You know that, right?”

“Sleeping,” Alex sing-songs, closing her eyes and letting out two obnoxiously loud snores.

“Come on, dummy,” Kara says, shaking her awake. “You know how long it took me to get used to Earth. It’s fine if you’re struggling.”

“I’m not struggling,” Alex says, ripping the covers off herself, and dislodging Kara’s hands with it.

She wonders, absently, how Astra is faring, having to deal with this problem the other way around. Is _she_ struggling? From the few times Alex has seen the woman since their confrontation, always in Kara’s company, she hasn’t shown any sign of it.

And neither would she, Alex decides stubbornly. No word would make it back to Astra via Kara that she can’t handle this.

Not that she cares what Astra thinks.

“Come on, I wanna show you something,” Kara says, tugging at her legs again until Alex groans. “You don’t even need to sleep!”

She tugs a grumbling Alex off the bed, waves off her attempts to get properly dressed, and shoos her out of the window before Alex even realizes what happened.

“Kara, what are you-”

But Kara is lifting up with one hand straight into the sky, forcing Alex to fly to keep up with her. They go up and eastward at a slow pace, until they reach the mountains, and are skimming above them.

“Kara, where are we-” Alex starts, just in time for Kara to turn around and spin her backwards, so that she’s confronted with the view of the sun rising over the ocean.

“Look at that.” Kara says softly from behind Alex.

Alex watches as the first reaching rays illuminate the few skyscrapers of National City. The cool blue of the CatCo and LCorp buildings both blaze golden, as the light touches them, and her breath catches. Below their feet, the trees glow too, and not from the usual blaze of forest fires.

“This... is pretty cool.” Alex says.

Kara hums, and turns to hold Alex by the waist, leaning against her.

“I have to admit, I’m kind of thrilled about this,” she says, a little sheepishly. “About getting to share these powers with you, and have you know what they really feel like.”

Alex looks down at the ground so far below them. For half her life she had envied Kara for her powers, only to feel completely lost when she had suddenly gained them herself. When she looks back at Kara, her sister’s smile is watery.

“When you were in the coma, I felt like I had lost everything.” she says, “And, you know what made it worse? The thought that you had spent all your life protecting me, that you were just starting to live for yourself, and then life had to go and throw you a curveball like that.”

“Kara, no,” Alex murmurs. “It was never like that, you know that.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kara says. “But, I’m glad you’re here now. These powers might seem like a burden now, but you’ll figure it out, Alex. One day, it’s all gonna feel like second nature.”

Alex nods, and turns back to study the sunrise wordlessly.

It really is a perfect morning.

And, Alex realizes with an odd feeling stirring inside her, Astra had given it to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Alex |** Things worse than dying

Two weeks later, they get a debrief that Maxwell Lord is hiding in one of the suspected Cadmus strongholds, and Alex suddenly understands where the organization had got hold of the kryptonite it needed to hold Astra down in a three-year coma, after its DEO-smuggled supply had been cut off.

Alex leads the infiltration in the hideout that night, with Kara keeping an aerial lookout. The operation runs like clockwork, now that she’s in better control of her newfound powers. They’re in and out within three hours, with Max safely contained in the back of a DEO van.

“You think we can actually keep him in this time?” Vasquez asks her in an undertone, as they re-enter the DEO. “How long before one of his government buddies tries to shut us down for this?”

“We’ll see what Marsdin has to say about that,” Alex says, watching as Max is led to a containment cell by two agents.

He catches her watching, smirks back at her, and Alex wants to rip his head off, remembering the two vans’ worth of kryptonite that they had evacuated with him. How  _ dare _ he, knowing that that Kara was in the city, that she was just one containment break away from being exposed to lethal levels of-

“Are you ok?” Kara asks, landing beside her, as Alex finally turns away.

“I’m fine,” Alex says, before blinking rapidly, as she stalks back to her desk.

“What is it?” Kara asks, immediately concerned.

“Max threw bug spray or something at me, when I broke into his office,” Alex says. “I think it got into my eyes.”

She wipes more of it away with a tissue, and it comes away a light pinkish red.

“Report to decontamination immediately, Agent Danvers,” J’onn orders, marching over.

“But, the debrief-” Alex starts. 

_ “Now.” _

“Yeah, now, dummy,” Kara chimes in.

“That’s enough out of you, Supergirl,” J’onn says. “Stop haranguing Agent Danvers.”

“But J’ooooonn,” Kara whines, following him into the conference room, as Alex slouches off towards the showers instead.

It’s nothing, she thinks, swiping irritatedly at her eyes again. Stupid overprotective Kryptonian sisters and Martian bosses.

* * *

 

**Astra |** Red like blood

Astra is working on one of her plants, when the phone that Kara had forced her to carry around months ago rings. It’s such a rare sound - Kara usually just flies over if she needs anything - that she looks around in confusion for some moments, before locating the source of the noise.

“Thank  _ Rao  _ you picked up,” Kara says urgently, when Astra finally answers the phone. “Astra, put the warehouse on lockdown. If Alex comes by, _ do not let her in _ .”

“Your sister is not in the habit of visiting me, Kara,” Astra replies, confused. “What is going on?”

“She’s been acting weird for the past couple of weeks,” Kara replies, sounding panicked. “I just thought that maybe she was upset over Maggie again, or something else had happened, but then today she started acting  _ really  _ weird and then her eyes started glowing red, and-”

“Little One, calm down,” Astra says. “What are you saying?”

“It’s red kryptonite,” Kara says. The words seem to be rushing out of her in a flood. “I don’t know how it happened. J’onn asked her to stay in the DEO while we figured it out, but Alex wouldn’t listen to reason. She flew off before I could get there, and now we can’t track her down.”

Astra, who had still technically been “dead” during the time that Kara herself had gone under the spell of red kryptonite, frowns in confusion. All she knows of that night is what Kara had told her, and her niece had told her only confusing fragments of it, while sobbing into her shoulder one night.

“What does this have to do with me, Kara?” she asks, although she is, slowly, realizing exactly what. “I thought the DEO already had an antidote for red kryptonite.”

There’s a soft thump of impact behind her, and a voice speaks, familiar in its cadence, but unfamiliar in its sheer coldness.

“What  _ does _ this have to do with you?” her earlier question is echoed back at her, as Astra turns around.

“She left before we could use it on her,” Kara says into the phone, even as Astra stares into Alex’s eyes, before her voice turns quiet. “Oh Rao, what was that?  _ Who _ was that?”

Astra ends the call with her thumb, not taking her eyes off Alex, and tosses the phone away.

“Agent Danvers,” she acknowledges.

“You did this to me,” Alex says, quietly. “I knew it.”

“Did what?” Astra asks, calmer than she feels.

“This!” Alex roars the words now, and there is indeed red fire in her eyes, as Kara had said. “What did you do, Astra?”

“You think I did this?” Astra scoffs, tipping her head back from the heat of that gaze. “Is that not typical of you humans, to always blame someone else for your problems? Tell me, does it make you sleep easier at night?”

She wants to edge away as Alex stalks closer, well aware that this is a fight she won’t win. Her body though, seems rooted to the spot, shoulders hunkering up as if she could indeed fight the woman. Astra had, after all, never been one to run from a fight, even a doomed one.

“You think I sleep easy at night?” Alex asks, and her voice hitches. “Fuck you.”

“Why are you here, Alex?” Astra grits out, as the woman encroaches even near.

“Because I want you to undo whatever you did to me,” Alex says. “I should have known! I should have guessed this was your endgame.”

“You’re delusional.”

Alex snarls at that, and then things happen faster than Astra can blink. One moment, Alex is striking out at her, and she’s putting her hand up to block the attack. The next, Astra finds herself slammed against the wall so hard that it takes her breath away. She hacks out a cough, and launches herself forward, only to be held back in place by one hand pressed against her shoulder.

“Why did you do this to me?” Alex asks, her face contorted in pain. “Why does everything hurt?”

She’s crying, Astra realizes, through the haze of panic that had rendered her momentarily immobile. She remembers a mirror of this scene, with their positions reversed, and her hands around Alex’s throat. It had seemed commonplace to her then, after the constant aggression of Fort Rozz. Now, she gets an idea of how terrifying it must have been to a human like Alex, though she had hid it well at that time.

“Why?” Alex shouts again.

Astra struggles to break free of the hold, which looks so tenuous, but might as well be an iron bar strapped across her body, for all the progress she makes. No matter how she tries to leverage the woman’s strength against her, Alex doesn’t budge. 

“Release me.” Astra growls, kicking out at the woman, despite knowing that she’d have better luck kicking at a concrete wall.

Alex doesn’t release her. Instead a blade appears in her other hand, faster than Astra can blink. The next second, it’s digging into the fabric of her shirt, precariously close to skin. At that, panic turns to terror, and Astra’s blood runs cold. The blade is silver, not green, and of clearly inferior tempering. Yet, before Astra’s eyes, a green dagger and vials of green kryptonite flash by in rapid succession, followed by the stark impact of a green sword being driven into her chest. Phantom pain courses through her limbs at the mere memory, and she’s vaguely aware that she’s started shaking. Words exit her lips that she can’t make out. It might be just terrified gibbering, or outright pleading, she’s not sure.

“Stop!” Alex says. “Stop it!”

The knife point recedes, as she puts her hands to her ears, as if to drown something out, and Astra’s shaking dies down with it.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Alex’s voice is pleading, and punctuated by the clatter of metal falling to the floor.

“I never wanted to kill you,” she says, and she’s crying. “Why did you make me do it? Why couldn’t you just leave J’onn alone?” 

Astra stands as still as stone, while the woman sobs into her shoulder.

“Agent Danvers-”

“I killed you, and Kara was so angry at me, she tried to hide it, but she was so angry-”

Hands are clutching at Astra’s shoulders, like she’s a lifeline. Does Alex remember who she is talking to? Astra thinks not, because the woman seems to be mumbling more to herself than to her.

“Killed you... left Maggie... Julia was so scared, when we broke into her house... I did that.”

Astra is still frozen, listening to the distrait mumbling, when a surer voice pierces the quiet.

“Alex! Aunt Astra!”

Then the door is bursting in, and a blur of red and gold is speeding towards them.

* * *

 

**Alex |** Well, I’m burnt to ashes, split down the middle

Alex wakes up in her own bed, to Kara’s concerned face looming over her. Kara scrambles back as Alex lets out a yell of surprise.

“Sorry, sorry!”

Alex looks around, breathing deeply, as her memory comes back.

What is she doing here? She hadn’t been here. She’d been somewhere else. Hadn’t she?

“J’onn thought you might be better off recuperating in your own apartment than in a DEO ward,” Kara says, softly.

Astra. Alex remembers suddenly. She’d been at Astra’s warehouse. She’d confronted her, held that knife to her chest, and then Astra had- Astra had-

She rips the covers off here body, and jumps out of bed, making Kara step backwards in surprise.

“Alex, what are you-”

Alex shakes off the bracing hand that reaches for her, and rushes past Kara to the bathroom. She just barely makes it to the toilet before she throws up.

“Alex!”

Unheeding, Alex hurls her guts out, gets up on shaky legs, remembers Astra’s terrified face, and sways again. She’s barely aware of Kara’s steady hands on her shoulder, pulling her hair back as Alex hurls again.

“It’s okay, Alex, it’s going to be okay.”

Kara helps Alex back up when she’s done, helps her to the washstand, and holds her tight afterwards, murmuring that same comforting chant.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

It’s not, Alex thinks, tears mingling with sweat, as she cries into Kara’s shirt. It’s never going to be okay.

* * *

 

**Astra |** If anyone asked, it hurt just a little

Astra doesn’t sleep on the night following her confrontation with Alex, aware of exactly what would be waiting for her in her dreams. She brushes off Kara’s offer to stay with her through the night, and works on her research instead, until early dawn finds her nodding off over the book she’s supposed to be reading. Only then does she allow herself a brief nap, while sunlight streams in through the windows of the warehouse. 

The next night, she follows the same pattern. Sometime past midnight on the third night, though, as Astra is tracing the holographic outlines of a particularly complicated organic molecule she’s studying, there comes the sound of protracted banging on the warehouse door.

“Astra, it’s me! Open up!”

Astra stares unseeingly at the hologram in front of her for several moments, while the banging continues, before finally walking over and opening the door, knowing exactly who she would find outside.

It’s Alex, of course. Her face looks ravaged, with purple circles under her eyes that only several nights of sleeplessness could have carved into Kryptonian biology.

“Kara told me I should give it a week or something,” she mumbles. “But Astra, I had to, I just had to.”

Astra steps back automatically, and Alex follows her in without an invite.

“It was Max,” Alex says, in a rush. 

“Maxwell Lord?” Astra asks, anger instantly flaring.

“The red kryptonite...he synthesized it for Cadmus. That’s how I got infected. I thought it was-” 

Alex stops, looking down.

“You thought it was me,” Astra finishes for her. “That I was playing... what was it you said? The long game, when I changed your body’s biology.”

Alex sighs. “I was wrong, ok? I guess you have the right to rub it in, but... ugh.”

She walks to the couch, again uninvited. Instead of sitting on it, though, she sinks onto the floor against it.

“What do you want, Agent Danvers?” Astra asks, feeling a headache forming. Just another wonderful periodic gift of this newly human body of hers.

“We need to be better than this,” Alex says. “We need to stop fighting like this. It’s not getting us anywhere, and it’s making Kara feel like she’s stuck in the middle.”

“Kara is an adult who makes her own choices, and knows that others make theirs,” Astra says. “I thought we’d both learned that the hard way, in the past years.”

She sees Alex flinch at that, but the sense of triumph she gets from that is short-lived.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not affecting her!”

“So this is all about her?” Astra inquires. “You’re magnanimous, Agent Danvers.”

“At least I’m trying,” Alex snaps.

“It’s hard for me to try,” Astra says tersely, “When I don’t know what I’m supposed to be trying for.”

Alex sags, as if all the fight has gone out of her in one moment.

“Why are you even here, then?” she asks. “Why pretend that you’ve given up your cause, when we both know that you were willing to let me kill you rather than join us?”

“I don’t pretend for the likes of you.”

“Then, what is it?” Alex pursues. “You almost  _ died _ , Astra. And then we finally bring you back, and you’re suddenly okay with throwing your entire cause away? You keep saying it’s for Kara, but I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“Because, if that’s the truth, you’d have done it the first time around. So, why?”

“I can hardly go back to what I was.” Astra says. “By the time I woke up, Fort Rozz was in space, and Non all but dead.”

Everything she had built towards for over twelve years, destroyed, and a further three years of her life lost after Alex had “killed” her. Astra doesn’t dare calculate just how many years of her life, in total, has been wasted on one futile cause after another.

“It’s hard to build something the same way again, Agent Danvers. I can hardly activate Myriad by myself. So, I’m trying a different way.”

“And we’re just supposed to trust that you’re going to stick to the right path, this time.”

“I’m not asking anything of the rest of you, let alone trust.” Astra says.

“Well,  _ Kara _ is asking me to trust you.”

“Kara is more forgiving than the both of us.”

“Then, I wish she could hear you now.” Alex says. “Hear that this is the strongest justification you have for not turning Myriad on us again.”

“What do you want me to do, instead?” Astra asks. “Give you a heartfelt speech about how I’ve changed, and realized that I was wrong, and that I won’t ever do it again?”

Alex shifts as Astra moves forward, as if she had wanted to step back before standing firm.

“If I said my heart wasn’t in it anymore, would you believe me?”

“Is it the truth?” Alex asks, quietly.

“Would you believe me?” Astra repeats.

“Maybe not.” Alex admits. “But, tell me anyway. Was you heart ever in it, Astra?”

“It doesn’t matter, one way or another. I still did what I did.”

“But, I’d like to know why.”

“Cages are larger to those inside than out, Agent Danvers.”

“And what does  _ that _ mean?” Alex asks, looking exhausted.

Astra resists the urge to snap back. What was it with humans, with this one particular human, and digging until every fragile part of you was uncovered?

“It means you will just have to take my word for it.”

“And if I won’t, then it means that I can never actually trust you.” Alex says.

Astra looks down, unable to refute the truth of that.

* * *

 

**Alex |** I saw the world from the stars' point of view

Another sleepless night. 

Alex tosses and turns in bed for three hours, before finally giving it up as a lost cause, and dragging herself out of the bedroom. She makes a beeline for the kitchen table and pours out half a glass of whisky by sheer reflex, before she remembers that the drink doesn’t affect her anymore. 

“Fuck.” Alex mumbles, scrubbing a hand over her eyes and wondering how pissed off M’gann would be if she showed up at the bar at this time of night and demanded some of that Aldebaran rum that had gotten Kara so shitfaced. Knowing M’gann, it would just get her a lecture, and a call to J’onn to fly her home.

Fuck this new body.

She’d hold her newly Kryptonian biology responsible for the insomnia too, but Kara goes to sleep readily enough every night. Or, Alex wonders, is Kara plagued by unsettling dreams every night too, even now, and has just learned to deal with them better than she has?

She studies the drink, as if it holds the answer. It never had, although that hadn’t stopped her from downing glass after glass until she passed out, before.

Nothing had, until J’onn had come along. Had dragged her away, kicking and screaming, from something she could have never walked away from herself.

_ Cages are larger to those inside than out. _

The drink drops back to the table, wobbling a bit before righting itself, and Alex has grabbed her coat before she realizes it. 

She doesn’t fly, heading instead with dazed steps to her bike. Traffic is blessedly light due to the time of night, and she’s pulling up to Astra’s warehouse within twenty minutes, and banging on the door for a minute more, before the woman opens it. 

“Agent Danvers.”

It’s 2am, and Astra looks like she’s been awake the whole night, same as Alex. The woman looks different from how Alex has ever seen her before. Tired. Haggard. Human, maybe. Or just hurt.

“I get it.” Alex blurts out, before Astra can demand what she’s doing here. “Well, no, I don’t get it but I  _ get  _ it, you know?”

“Agent Danvers,” Astra begins, eyebrows raising in what could be surprise or disdain, “Are you drunk?”

Alex just shoves past her into the warehouse, which is fully lit, confirming her suspicions.

“No.” she says. “I was about to be, and then I realized what you meant, and how you had Non and all the Fort Rozz inmates to deal with and joining us wasn’t as easy as just crossing over, and then I remembered when the military came to the DEO and wanted to lock J’onn up, and I get it, I really do-”

She stops to inhale a long breath, and Astra is still staring at her like maybe she’s lost it, but Alex feels more clear-headed than she has in days.

“I get it,” she repeats, quietly.

Astra still looks like she doesn’t understand.

“And there’s something I need you to know, Astra.”

Alex crosses over to where Astra is standing. The woman flinches as she nears, and Alex stalls, discouraged. 

“The knife,” she mutters.

Hazily, she remembers pressing the tip of it to Astra’s chest, remembers Astra losing it, remembers the flood of panicked words that had issued from the normally stoic woman’s mouth, and suddenly Alex is fighting back tears again.

“That wasn’t me,” she says, voice trembling. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Astra. Not again, ever. If I could go back in time... but, well, that doesn’t...  _ fuck. _ ”

She shakes her head, fighting to find the words. Her hand reaches out automatically, trembling in the space before Astra’s chest.

“That wasn’t me.”

Right then, it seems like the most important thing in the world, that Astra understand this.

“Do you believe me?” Alex asks her, tentatively.

Finally, Astra nods, and Alex has never felt more relieved in her life.

* * *

**Alex |** The start of something new

"I'm taking Astra to the planetarium tomorrow," Alex announces to Kara, the next sisters' night.

Kara stares at her, and then slowly leans over to tap Alex's head on both sides. Then, she examines her eyes, spreading them apart between thumb and forefinger, and studying them closely. Finally, she presses a thumb against the inside of Alex's wrist, apparently taking her pulse.

"Hey!" Alex says, slapping the hand away. "What are you doing, weirdo?"

"Just wondering if you're sick, or if some White Martian has taken over my sister," Kara says. "I'm sorry, you're taking who where?"

Alex rolls her eyes. "You heard me. I thought you wanted us to be friendlier with each other."

"I do!" Kara says. "It's just, this is so... I mean-"

"So out of the blue?" Alex grimaces. "If we're going to get along, we have to start somewhere, right? The planetarium is perfect. It's a public space, so we can't start a fight, and we're supposed to keep silent, so I don't even have to make conversation."

Kara blinks. "I guess. Astra agreed to this?"

The truth is, Astra had mostly blinked a bunch of times when Alex had asked her, as if she were caught off guard. Then she had made some half-hearted snipe about the inferiority of earth's stargazing technology, which Alex suspects was mostly a last-ditch attempt to save face, after getting caught off-guard.

"Well, she did eventually nod, when I told her to be at the front of the planetarium at eight," she says. "I'm guessing that counts as a yes."

Kara looks amazed, before she reaches over and squeezes Alex. "I'm so proud of you!"

Alex winces, and scooches out of the hold. "Don't start. At least wait to make sure one of us hasn't killed each other by the end of the evening."

Her sister glares. "Too soon."

"It's been more than 3 years!" Alex says, putting her hands up.

"Still!", Kara says, but she does let Alex have the last potsticker, which Alex figures is the greatest gesture of gratitude that she's going to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to update sooner, but then I realized I needed to add some extra scenes in, so I had to write those. Thank you for reading, I hope you guys like it so far! These two have a while to go, and a lot of stuff to work through, but they'll get there in the end.
> 
> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Alex** |  _ Right before my eyes _

The surprising thing is, the trip to the planetarium is not a total disaster.

Astra shows up right at the appointed time, and she's thankfully wearing clothes that - if a little too formal for the venue - still look like things that a human of the time period would plausibly wear. Alex - who hadn't been looking forward to explaining to security officers why her companion was dressed in a skinsuit like an extra from a 90s music video - breathes a sigh of relief.

"It's sunny," Astra says, stiffly, as they walk towards the ticket booth.

Alex stares at her. "It's National City, Astra. It's always sunny, here."

Astra looks irritated. "I knew that already."

Alex stares at her, bemused, and the general shrugs.

"Kara instructed me to 'stick to the weather and your health', as topics of conversation," she says. "She assured me that this would stop the cats and dogs from fighting."

Alex squints, trying to work through Astra's unique approach to the English language and its idioms, and eventually gets at what she actually seems to mean. "Oh, ah. I see."

But, despite whatever misgivings Kara might have had, they get inside the show without much of an issue. The only hiccup happens when Alex hands over their tickets to the usher, and Astra starts lecturing the man on still using paper-based technology. Alex, familiar with this diatribe from the few times Astra deigns to visit the DEO headquarters, drags her away before it gets serious, and for a wonder, Astra lets herself be dragged.

The real issue arises, though, not from any interaction between her and Astra, but when Alex lies back against her seat as the show begins. The lights go off, the projected sky on the ceiling above them glows to life, and this should all be very familiar to Alex.

It should be familiar, because her dad used to take her to a show like this just about every week, back when he was lecturing at NCU. It should be familiar because Alex herself had stumbled into shows like this in university, on the few nights when she wasn't drinking herself into a stupor, trying to find some semblance of familiarity in the starshow above, when everything else she knew seemed to have been taken away from her.

And yet, it's not, because there's a moment right when the show starts, that Alex blinks, and suddenly she's seeing past the projected stars and nebulae, past the ceiling into the real sky, staring at stellar formations and galaxies farther than most of Earth's telescopes can manage. She blinks again, and tries to reign her vision back in, tries to focus on the ceiling. It's a struggle, what with her brain sending mixed signals. She has to blink several more times, until the projected ceiling comes back into focus.

When her sight finally seems somewhat settled, Alex chances a sideways glance, to see what the hell Astra is making of all this. To her surprise, Astra's eyes are wider than she's ever seen them, and she's staring up at the fake sky above them with a slightly parted mouth. From the way her gaze is avidly following the sound of the roving narration, she seems to actually be interested, despite the fact that this can't possibly match up to the technology they must have had on Krypton.

Alex settles back into her own seat, rather restlessly. A part of her wants to scream, wants to jump right up in the middle of the narration, and demand whether anyone else had seen what she saw. She wonders how Kara deals with this, every damn day of her life. Alex wants to scream out to the skies how it feels, she wants to publish something, she wants to look and look and never close her eyes.

She's bubbling over with suppressed excitement even as the show draws to a close, and they walk out of the theatre. Astra makes some passing observation about the weather again, and then about some of the flowers from a sidewalk stall. Alex's answers are monosyllabic, too preoccupied with her own discovery.

"Oh Rao," Astra says, finally. "What is it, this time?"

"What?" Alex asks, still distracted.

"What has you frowning like that?"

"I'm not," Alex draws her face back into inexpressive lines. "I'm fine."

"Obviously not." Astra says, looking ticked off now. "What have I managed to upset you regarding, this time? Without talking, apparently, which I admit is impressive even for me."

Alex struggles with herself for only a few minutes, before the question bursts out of her like a dam.

"It's just, don't you miss them?"

Astra looks puzzled, and faintly offended. "I do not miss, Alex. If I remember correctly, I outshot you, the last time that Kara invited the two of us to train with her."

Alex groans. "Not that kind of miss, Astra. I mean your powers. How are you dealing so well without them? Kara managed to get a cold and break her arm when she lost hers, and that was only for a couple of days!"

"Oh," Astra says, and frowns, seeming to actually be thinking it over. "You forget that I spent most of my life without them. I'd gotten used to them, of course, over the years since I landed on Earth, but most of my life was spent on Krypton, or in military forts in space, far away from your yellow sun."

"Oh," Alex says. "Right. I guess that'd do it."

When she next chances a look at Astra, the woman is looking at her with a complex expression. She looks almost apologetic, Alex would say, but sometimes it's harder to read Astra the more expressive she is.

"What?"

Astra shakes her head.

"It's a good thing you have Kara," she murmurs, eventually. "To take care of you through this, as you once took care of her."

Alex stares, wondering if this is Astra's idea of a concession, if this is as good an apology as she's going to get.

"Can we go again?" Astra asks, out of the blue.

Alex blinks. "What?"

"That." Astra waves a hand at the building they had just exited. There's a suppressed excitement brimming just beneath her calm manner, that reminds Alex of an excited child. "I liked it. Can we go again?"

"Oh," Alex says, and figures, well, she  _ had  _ offered, and the trip had definitely been a nice break from being stuck in the DEO all day. "Right. Yeah, sure."

“Good,” Astra says, and then, “Now, how is your health?”

Alex laughs at, really laughs out loud like she hasn’t in ages, and even Astra’s mouth quirks up a little. They walk the rest of the block in silence and, just as silently, Alex decides that perhaps the trip hadn’t gone as badly as she’d been dreading.

* * *

 

**Astra |** _ Take me to your leaders _

President Olivia Marsdin visits National City the next month, giving a public speech at the city hall, and Astra attends. Not from the skies as a threat, or with the DEO as part of her security detail, but as an anonymous figure in the crowd, unnoticed in the jacket and trousers that she had borrowed from M’gann.

She spots the man in the crowd due to sheer familiarity. 

Nothing about him makes him stand apart from the crowd. He looks no different from the rest of the humans. His clothing is the same inexplicable style of attire that escapes Astra’s understanding. His face is similar to many other faces in the crowd. He’s a stranger to her, but something about the way he holds himself, the bulge in his jacket pocket, his single-minded focus on the podium, the nervous twitching, are all sending a very familiar message to Astra.

She has been here before.

She has stood by such a man before, as he carries out a crime that would later sentence both of them to Fort Rozz. She has rationalized the actions of such a man before, has argued with herself in circles until the crime had made sense, had even seemed justified.

None of that matters right then, of course. What matters right then is what Astra does next, which is grit her teeth, tackle the man, and drive him down into the ground with her.

There’s the taste of gravel in her mouth, and annoyed shouts from above her, uttered by people around them who seem to think this is just some drunken brawl upsetting Marsdin’s speech. Only the gunman currently struggling to escape Astra’s hold seems to realize the gravity of the situation.

“Let go, bitch,” he grunts, trying to shake off her hold.

Astra doesn’t let go. Instead, she twists her hold around his right arm, the torque bending it backwards until he screams. It leaves her left flank open, she realizes, just a moment too late.

It happens within moments. His left hand comes up, the gun goes off with a sharp burst of sound. Screams erupt all around Astra, as the crowd finally realizes that this isn’t some drunken tassle.

There’s a brief flash of manageable pain, when the surface skin tears. Then, Astra feels like the wind has been knocked out of her, as a deeper and near-unbearable pain wracks her left arm, from where the bullet had dug into the flesh.

How primitive these earth weapons are, swords and knives and projectiles. And yet, each of them have now unerringly left their mark on her body, just as effectively any advanced weapon of Kryptonian make. Astra’s vision blurs with involuntary tears from the pain, and she grits her teeth, refocusing on the man struggling under her. She’s vaguely aware of a wide swath clearing around them, aware of her hands shaking, but her hold on him remains unbroken.

_ “You think that’s going to stop me?” _ she growls, in Kryptonese, because every other language had fled as soon as pain had set in.

And then-

And then, all breath leaves Astra’s lungs again, as she’s tackled bodily away from the gunman by a blur of black and grey. She lands on her back, softer than she had expected, and then someone lands on top of her, shielding her body. 

“What were you thinking?” is yelled directly into her ear, the speaker sounding some mix of angry, frustrated and worried. “You’re not invincible anymore, do you remember that?”

“Agent Danvers,” Astra murmurs, feeling the warmth of the Alex’s skin around her, distinctly different from the chill pavement and the wet blood seeping through her shirt. “Alex, the gun-”

“Kara’s got it!” Alex shouts into her ear over the din, still huddling over her. “Just stay down!”

Astra blinks slowly, staring at the black fabric pressing down on her. Alex, warm and  _ here  _ and shielding her. She hears more yelling, hears Alex shouting orders into her communication devices, hears Kara’s voice in the distance, and then she hears nothing at all, as the blood loss takes its toll. 

* * *

 

When she regains consciousness, there’s a burning pain in her left arm, and her head twinges as she tries to lift it. 

“Oh,  _ now  _ she’s awake,” a voice says, undercurrents of worry rather than irritation tingeing it. “But, when I have to explain what happened to the president  _ and _ the NCPD commissioner, she’s out like a light.”

“Agent Danvers,” Astra murmurs, wincing as her head hurts again, when she turns to look at the cross-legged agent lounging by her bedside.

She looks around, feels a brief flare of panic as she realizes that she’s in the DEO.

“We didn’t exactly have anywhere else to bring you,” Alex says, as if reading her thoughts. “You took a bullet to your shoulder, do you realize that? You’re lucky it didn’t hit a major vessel.”

Astra rolls her bandaged left arm, feels the burning pain again, and grimaces.

“Your leader... is she alright?” she asks.

“If you mean the president, she’s fine.” Alex sighs. “And the gunman is under arrest, although there was no need for you to go tackling him yourself like that. What were you thinking? You know both the DEO and the NCPD were running security around the place.”

“They couldn’t have made it through that crowd easily,” Astra says. “Did you see the size of it?”

“We had snipers posted,” Alex says, with another sigh. “Of course I saw the crowd. But, what the hell were you doing in it?”

“The president was giving a public speech, and I attended,” Astra retorts, offended. “I am part of the public now, am I not?”

“But, why?” Alex pursues. “You’re not exactly the democratic type, Astra, no pun intended.”

“I happen to like the way she thinks,” Astra replies, frowning as she tries to understand the last part of Alex’s sentence. “I admire her policies, and find her new sustainability initiative to be surprisingly forward-thinking. Why shouldn’t I have gone to hear her speak?”

Alex stares at her for some moments, before her face clears.

“You’re serious,” she says, as if that’s a revelation. “Does it run in the family or something, being an Olivia Marsdin fangirl?”

“A what?” Astra asks.

“Never mind.” Alex shakes her head. “Just... don’t do something stupid like jumping in front of a bullet again. Kara was so upset that J’onn asked her to fly around the whole state to calm down. You’re gonna have to explain this to her when she returns, by the way.”

“Kara,” Astra murmurs, feeling the headache return. 

“You’ve got other problems before facing Kara,” Alex says. “The president wants to talk to you.”

Astra balks. Listening to one speech from a politician is one thing, but actually talking with one? She distrusts the species as a whole, no matter how attractive their policies might be.

“Tell her I’m asleep!” she commands.

Alex snorts. “I don’t take orders from you. Besides, lying to the president is probably like... treason or something.”

“Alex-”

“She just wants to thank you,” Alex says. “It’ll be fine.”

“It’s never simply fine with you humans,” Astra says. 

“Us humans? Boy, you’re in for a surprise,” Alex mutters, so low that Astra almost doesn’t hear it.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing you won’t find out for yourself, soon,” Alex says, waving her hand dismissively. “Do you want me to stay with you? Would that be better?”

Astra stares at her.

“You saved me,” she murmurs. “From the gunman.”

Alex’s arms tighten on the chair’s armrests - Astra sees the padding buckle - before untensing again.

“Yeah, well.”

Astra reaches out, and voices something she’d have never felt comfortable saying to anyone who wasn’t Kara or her sister.

“Stay with me.”

Alex’s hand tightens again, but this time around Astra’s outstretched one, comfortingly.

“As long as you need, general.”

* * *

 

Astra gets released that very night, after a talk with the president, and yet another checkup with the infuriatingly unflappable chief doctor of the DEO’s medical bay. When Kara drops her off that night, though, it’s Alex who shows up unexpectedly at her front door.

Astra watches with bemusement, and growing irritation, as the human rifles through every inch of the warehouse, allegedly looking for ‘threats’ that might have been placed there by Lord or anyone else disgruntled with her.

“Alex,” she begins, finally being annoyed to the point of hostility, after Alex’s third check of her tools for nerve agents. “I can assure you no one is going to get anything past all the defenses I’ve erected around this place,  _ unless I let them _ .”

She glares at Alex pointedly as she utters the last part, and the other woman seems to sag.

“I like it here, ok?” she admits, finally. “It’s so... quiet, here. I can’t exactly sleep in my apartment anymore, with all the noise around. I don’t know how Kara stands it.”

“You don’t need to sleep,” Astra says, resolutely pushing away the stray pang of guilt that rears up, for what she’d thrown Alex headfirst into.

“I want to,” Alex snaps. “I’ve gotten used to it, and I want to keep one damn piece of normality in my life.”

Astra wavers, and that’s when Alex steps forward. It’s as if with all her other superpowers, she’s also gained the ability to hit Astra where she’s weakest, because she throws her a pleading look that’s unfairly effective.

“Can’t I just stick around for the night?”

Astra stares at Alex, outraged. Is this on purpose? Does she know what she’s doing to Astra?

No, Astra realizes. It’s likely that this is just how Alex is, once she lets down her walls.

That idea, overly hopeful though it is, sets off all sort of other wild ideas in her head, that she can’t fully manage to suppress.

“Very well.” she says, cutting off her thoughts before they grow  _ too _ out of hand. “Stay if you like, Agent Danvers.”

Which is how Astra finds herself curled up on one end of the couch, making her way through an interesting research paper that M’gann had sent over, while Alex sprawls along the length of the floor beside her, clearly well on her way to being fast asleep.

She’s in the middle of a particularly interesting passage breaking down an equation, when Astra feels a hand snake its way into her own free one, and squeeze.

“What is it?” she inquires, looking down at Alex.

The warm grip curls tighter, at her question, but Alex’s eyes are still closed, and her breathing is as regular as ever. Her hand tightens and loosens around Astra’s as she inhales and exhales, and Astra simply watches for some moments, before she returns to her senses.

Shaking her head and muttering about infuriating humans, she leans down to lift Alex up, depositing her along the unoccupied length of the couch.

“Hey, wuh?” Alex mumbles out, seeming to still be very much asleep.

“You’ll be more comfortable, this way.” Astra says. “Good night.”

She’s subjected to some drowsy jostling, as Alex shifts around to get comfortable in her new makeshift bed. Soon, though, her head is burrowing in Astra’s side, and soft snores rise up, an entirely unfamiliar accompaniment to how Astra usually spends her nights.

She decides, as she goes back to her reading, that she doesn’t mind it.

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ Red like Rao _

Alex tells herself that she keeps coming by Astra’s warehouse because of the soundproofing, and because Astra has hoarded some really interesting books, and because she knows how to hack Alura’s hologram to get access to files that the DEO couldn’t even manage to crack.

Somewhere along the way, that actually becomes true. Astra leaves books and drives lying around everywhere, seemingly heedless of rhyme or rhythm. Alex takes it on herself to organize them, because then she has an excuse to read what’s in them, as she goes about the work. If Astra notices, she doesn’t complain, and for her part, Alex has always skated by on the “beg forgiveness later” principle.

It’s because of this, that she realizes that Astra’s life isn’t as solitary as she had assumed. While she stills seems to prefer to keep to herself, she gets quite a few visitors, some of them regulars. They don’t always speak in languages that Alex - who skulks around the sidelines while pretending very hard that she’s not skulking around the sidelines - understands, but it seems to mostly be about Astra’s research.

Then, President Marsdin starts showing up regularly, presumably ditching her Secret Service detail through alien shenanigans that Alex frankly doesn’t want to know about. And that’s when Alex starts developing indigestion, because Marsdin is definitely not there for scientific advice. Oh, the two women do talk about conservation and climate change endlessly, and apparently Astra has even been appointed as a special advisor on a related task force at the EPA, but Alex can’t shake off the feeling that the real reason they keep in touch is because they’re  _ friends.  _ Because they  _ like  _ each other.

This is also about the time when the IKEA shelves that Alex is using to shelve away Astra’s books start breaking down more often than usual, because of her shoving the books into them way harder than intended. 

So what if they’re friendly? Why should Alex care, when spending time with the president seems to be one of the few things that makes Astra happy, and when the president is actually putting Astra’s expertise to good use? She has, Alex thinks, as she viciously shoves another book into alphabetical place, absolutely no reason to be disgruntled about this. She should be happy for Astra, the way Kara obviously is.

And then one day, it happens. Olivia Marsdin is taking her leave after another visit, and she hugs Astra in parting.

She  _ hugs _ her, and Alex can see Astra tense up at the start, but then she relaxes into it, and Alex can see her muscles stand out as she squeezes Marsdin back. Suddenly, Alex feels her fingers digging into her palms.

She turns back to the list she’d been cataloguing, but the scene doesn’t leave her head, and plays itself out over and over like some recap at the start of a TV show. The way Astra had tensed and then relaxed into the hold... how often had she been hugged?

Had Kara hugged her, after the Red Kryptonite incident? Had she stayed, to make sure Astra was okay? Alex’s eyes blur with sudden tears.

“Alex?”

She starts at the voice, and blinks fiercely, before looking up to see Astra watching her.

“I asked what you wanted for dinner, and you weren’t responding.” Astra says. “Is everything alright?”

Alex looks at the book she’d been holding suspended in mid-air, and slots it gently into its place, before getting up.

She gives plenty of warning to Astra, encroaching her space slowly, before putting her arms around the woman, and drawing her in.

Astra makes a muffled noise of surprise. “Alex, have you hit your head?”

“Nope.” Alex replies, also muffled, into her hair. “This is happening.”

“Let go.”

“You have to hug me back first.” Alex says. “That’s how this works.”

“You’re infuriating,” Astra says, but her arms are already around Alex, squeezing.

Being a good hugger is genetic, Alex decides, as Astra holds her. It must run in the House of El, or Ze, or something. There’s no other explanation for how nice this feels. When she finally releases her, Astra sags a little, before straightening herself.

“What was that?”

Alex shrugs. “We’re friends now, right? Friends hug.”

“Friends?” Astra raises her eyebrows, the expression puzzled rather than skeptical, and Alex resists the urge to fidget under her survey. Then, Astra just rolls her eyes, huffs, and turns away.

Alex almost goes back to her books, before realizing that something is still bothering her.

“Astra?”

When Astra turns around again, inquiringly, Alex spins her in, and hugs her again.

“Alex?” Astra sounds even more surprised, maybe even concerned, but her face is also strangely flushed, now. “You really have hit your head.”

“Nope again.” Alex replies, before releasing her, and hunkering back down to cataloguing, aware of Astra watching her with consternation before walking away.

_ 2-1. Take that, Olivia Marsdin. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to @Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.
> 
> I snuck in a My Fair Lady reference in here, heehee. Laura Benanti is in it, playing as Eliza at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre until February, she’s fuckin transcendent in the role, anyone who likes her or musicals in general should catch it if they can, etc etc.
> 
> Also, I was late in uploading this, but that's cos I spent all of the last week writing up the missing scenes, so I could post the entire rest of the fic at once!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Astra |** _ Other times, I think gravity is love _

However bruised Astra’s ego tends to get sometimes, due to not being able to hold her own against superpowered opponents anymore, training in the DEO practise rooms is the best antidote.

There, with the aid of kryptonite to keep even Kara and Alex’s powers at level with her, she’s unbeatable, having the advantage of both height and experience on her side.

Not that it ever seems to stop Alex from trying. Where Kara uses Astra as a soundboard to practise new techniques, Alex’s objective seems to be much clearer: to defeat Astra.

Astra doesn’t mind, particularly. Developing new maneuvers with Kara is exciting, as is training the new recruits. With Alex, though, there’s something blessedly mind-numbing about letting her instincts take over, and going blow-to-blow against a well-matched opponent. Even if Alex inevitably loses, she’s clever enough to keep Astra guessing exactly how she plans to lose each time around, and quick enough that Astra never feels her attention waning.

If there’s one fault with her, though, it’s that she never admits defeat.

Which is why Astra once again finds herself with one subdued Agent Danvers squirming under her, trying her hardest to kick out of the iron hold that Astra has her pinned down in.

Astra digs her hand into Alex’s shoulder, fingers curving into the muscle to further solidify the hold. “Give it up, Alex.”

A defiant scoff. “You wish.”

If Astra were to ease her fingers up a little to the left and higher, and press into the flesh just so, she’d cut off air circulation. Alex would probably try to kick out again, but Astra’s calves would already be in place to subdue that. Alex might tenaciously hold onto consciousness for a few more moments, but she’s bound to pass out from lack of air eventually.

Astra does none of that, just flexes her hold looser, and then tighter again, which gets another frustrated scoff out of Alex.

“Give it up.” she repeats.

Alex’s reply is a grunt, and another attempt to push back against Astra’s hold. Astra pins her down further.

“Oof,” Alex gets out, through gritted teeth. She’s flushed, every muscle of her neck straining as she tries to find some leverage. “Get off.”

Astra doesn’t get off.

She’s aware, vaguely, that she’s staring. She’s aware, more lucidly that she doesn’t particularly care.

_ “Astra.”  _ Alex says, looking even more flushed, when their eyes meet.

Somewhere in that momentary dip in concentration, Astra must have left an opening, because Alex’s hands are coming up, to push up insistently against the sides of her chest. 

“ _ Get. Off.” _

Astra spooks at the touch. She lifts herself rapidly and roughly away from Alex, scooting back and drawing lungfuls of air when there’s enough distance between them. By the time she gets to her feet, she feels in control of herself again, able to face Alex without embarrassment.

“You’re getting better.” she says over her shoulder, as she walks over to turn off the kryptonite emitters. “Next time, though, let us hope you can last more than the two minutes you managed today.”

“Show off,” Alex grumbles.

Her face is still red, though, when Astra returns to her, and she seems to be avoiding her gaze.

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ Which is why love’s only demand is that we fall _

It becomes natural, over time, for Alex to become comfortable, and even used, to contact with Astra. They’re not deliberate touches. The light touch of a hand against a body, when one of them corrects the other’s pose during a training session, or accidental brushing of fingers when they’re eating or reading side by side. 

Nothing deliberate, until late into one unremarkable night.

Alex is near-collapsed on the couch beside Astra, after a brutal double shift at the DEO. Astra’s attention is riveted on some reality show playing on the screen, but Alex is too tired to focus on something even that brainless. Astra’s right hand is curled around the remote, but her left is resting loosely on the cushion, and Alex takes it without much thought. She strokes the inside of the palm, before pressing her thumb against it experimentally.

“What are you doing?”

Alex glances blearily up, to see Astra watching her, with an odd expression on her face.

“It feels... weird.” Alex says, half asleep. “Like, I don’t just feel the skin. I can feel the vibrations of the veins and capillaries. Even cell movements, I think.”

“Is that so?” Astra asks, looking bemused. “I never thought of my powers that way.”

“You didn’t ever feel that?”

“No.”

“Not even when hugging Kara, or anyone else?”

“Kara’s heart pumps blood more slowly than humans.” Astra says. “Her cells work differently, too. As for anyone else, you forget that I spent most of my time before Earth in Fort Rozz, or deployed off Krypton on mission. They weren’t exactly environments conducive to extended contact like... this.”

Alex bites her lips. She won’t ask it. She won’t ask it. She will not-

“Not even with Non?” The question escapes her lips, too late for her to bite it back.

Astra raises her eyebrows, and Alex thanks her newfound powers for keeping her from blushing so easily.

“Non was not fond of it,” Astra says. “I was alright with that.”

It’s Alex’s turn to be questioning.

“Alright, as in you weren’t fond of it either?” she asks. “Or alright as in you were just... alright?”

Astra sighs, and looks very reluctant.

“It was never a priority, one way or another.”

“Okay.” Alex frowns, not really knowing how to parse that answer.

She’s noticed it before too, Astra’s reluctance when it comes to this. It’s like a wall goes around her at the mention of Non. 

“I mean, I never thought it was a priority for myself either, you know?” she ventures. “Until I met-”

She blinks, as a fierce rush of  tears clouds her vision, because that hurts, it still hurts, and she doesn’t think it will ever stop hurting. When she gets herself under control again, and looks up at Astra, the other woman is looking back at her with an odd expression again.

“You must be hungry.” Astra says, abruptly.

“No, I’m fi-” Alex starts, but Astra is already getting up from the couch in one fluid motion. 

Alex sags back and waits, too tired to protest or follow, as Astra heads into the cordoned-off kitchen area, and returns in a few minutes.

“Here.”

Alex stares blankly at the steaming container. “I’m not hungry.”

“Nonsense.” Astra says. “I know what having a Kryptonian stomach on this planet felt like, Alex.”

Alex sighs, and burrows further into her coat, in the absence of a blanket.

“Just drop it, Astra.” she says. “I wanna sleep, ok?”

“Why won’t you eat?” Astra demands, “I don’t understand. Humans are supposed to feel better after eating, when they feel sad. All the movies Kara makes me watch say so.”

Alex blinks. “Is that what this is about? Astra, I’m  _ fine _ .”

“Clearly not.” Astra snaps.

Alex sighs again, and stares at the ground.

“You’re right.” she admits, finally. “I’m not fine. I don’t think I’ve been fine for a long time. But, food isn’t really gonna help me.”

“It will help with your hunger.” Astra says, matter-of-factly. “That’s a start, Alex.”

Alex sags, feeling her eyes get heavier with the strain of keeping them open. 

“You really want to make me feel better?”

She senses Astra tensing up at the question, before replying with a clipped “Yes.”

“Come here.”

Astra steps closer.

“Bend down.”

Astra bends down.

“Now, open your arms wide.”

Astra’s arms open wide.

“Now, put them around me, and squeeze.”

“I am not a toddler,” Astra grumbles. “If you wanted a hug, you can say so.”

Alex sighs in contentment, when she does as instructed despite the complaining.

“You Kryptonians really do give great hugs.” she murmurs, drowsily.

“What now, Alex?” Astra asks, after a while.

“Just... stay there.” Alex says, and closes her eyes.

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ Whatever remains _

The thing about Astra is, once Alex gets past her defenses, talking and hanging out with her is  _ easy. _ Her anecdotes about her life on alien planets are endless enough to satisfy even Alex’s curiosity, and her befuddled efforts to understand human culture are often entertaining enough to have her in stitches. Even when they don’t speak, Alex grows used to spending hours by her side just reading or tinkering with something, while Astra leaves her alone.

And, Astra knows things, about the strange galaxies and star systems that she’s been to. Not the kind of things that Alex can learn from textbooks and databases, not cold hard scientific facts. Instead, Astra talks about the feeling of a blue sun warming her skin on the Paraxi system, or the numbing liquid nitrogen rain on Olar that could kill one if they were caught out in it, and Alex feels as if she’s right there on that alien world, walking its surface. 

“You know, Kara never talks much about other planets,” she mentions, one day. “She’s told she visited them, but she’s never gone into detail about anything.” She frowns pensively at the star chart that she’d been skimming through. “I wonder if she misses it, being able to travel like that.”

Astra falls silent at that remark, Alex prods her.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” Astra says, slowly. “And no. There’s plenty on Earth to keep me settled for a long while yet. Besides, your world isn’t too far from era of commonly available space travel, if one goes by the standard calculations of technological advancement.”

“How long?” Alex asks, more out of curiosity than anything.

“A century,” Astra says. “Give or take a few decades, depending on if your political leaders stop squabbling with each other and don’t annihilate the planet with nuclear warfare before then.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Alex says, used to Astra’s snipes about such things, but she can’t resist releasing a wistful sigh. “Still, that’d be nice. For Kara, I mean.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you humans, it’s that technological advancement indicates nothing about the worth of a civilization,” Astra remarks, turning back to her book. “Perhaps Kara understands that, and it’s why she never speaks of it.”

Alex frowns, wondering if that’s an insult wrapped in a compliment, or the other way around. She stares up through the roof as she thinks it over, gazing into the sky as Kara sees it, as Astra had once been able to see it.

“You can do it, if you wanted to.” Astra’s quiet voice pierces the brief silence, though she still hasn’t looked away from her book.

“Kal-el has flown to other planets before,” she elaborates, when Alex glances at her inquiringly, “I’m sure you can, and Kara too, if she wishes.”

“But, she couldn’t.” Alex says, frowning. “She couldn’t leverage herself back, because of the vacuum.”

“A combination, then.” Astra says. “With your powers, you should be able to fly as far as... what do you humans call it? The Kuiper belt. If you have thrusters to give an initial propulsion the other way, you could make it back too. Radiation poisoning would not pose a problem for you, now.”

“But, Kara never-” Alex starts. 

“I don’t think Kara finds the icy wastes of Jupiter or Neptune appealing,” Astra says, dryly. “But, it’s the sort of thing you humans idealize.”

Well, Alex supposes, perhaps a species that had grown up being spaceflight being commonplace  _ would _ feel that way about it, the same way humans felt about a train ride or an airplane flight.

“I can really travel out there,” she murmurs, voicing that impossible possibility to herself.

Astra still seems focused more on her reading than on the discussion at hand. “Again, I see no reason why one would want to. But, you certainly can.”

Alex digests the thought, feeling a rush of...  _ something _ flow through her. The truth is, even though joining the DEO had opened the doors to stores of knowledge and research that she hadn’t even known existed, her job generally keeps her too busy to study things that aren’t directly related to missions. The chance to study something that has always interested her, purely for the sake of studying it, seems almost too good to be true.

“Alex?” Astra prompts, finally looking away from her book. “You look odd.”

Alex shakes her head. When she looks up again, there’s a strangely regretful expression on Astra’s face.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Perhaps you don’t care about all that, either.”

“What?” Alex asks, thrown.

“I never did apologize,” Astra says, musingly. “I did this to you without asking you. At the time, I thought I knew best, but...”

She trails off, and climbs down from the couch to where Alex is sprawled on the floor. Alex holds her breath without meaning to, as she draws closer.

“I don’t apologize for keeping you alive,” Astra says, staring at her, and commanding her gaze like gravity is locked onto her eyes. “I do apologize, though, for not asking you beforehand.”

“Bit late now,” Alex says, holding back a swallow.

Her fingers start to tap a beat against the floor, and she stills them, now knowing what they’ll do if Astra moves even one step closer.

But, Astra just nods, and looks away, as if she going back to her book. On instinct, Alex grabs her hand, and tugs until the woman looks back. Her surprised look turns inquiring, as she stares from their linked hands back to Alex, but Alex doesn’t say anything else, or explain. She just holds her hand and stares at her, the woman named after the stars, who  _ does _ shine as brightly as a star in Alex’s eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Alex |** _ No matter how improbable _

J’onn would disapprove, and forbid it entirely. Kara might be more receptive, but too anxious of Alex’s wellbeing. So, Alex tells neither of them what she’s up to, when she first starts testing out the veracity of Astra’s claim.

If there’s a third reason, if a selfish part of her wants to do this by herself for once, she quashes it ruthlessly, by telling herself that she’s doing this for the sake of her job. The DEO’s reconnaissance efforts to protect Earth from extraterrestrial threats would obviously be boosted by an ability to monitor activities as far as the Kuiper belt. Reminding herself of that over and over again helps Alex to keep both her expectations and nervousness in check, as she lifts off on her first trip.

She starts small for the first few trips, flying first past Mars before making it back on her first try, then venturing out past the gas giants. Curiosity wins over soon enough, though. On the sixth trip, Alex decides to test the limit of Astra’s claim, by flying at full speed all the way to the outer boundary of the Kuiper belt.

She lands in the outer boundary of the asteroid belt, and is aimlessly floating through, when she first detects the signal. 

It starts out as a blip in her measurement, a non-random radio signal that has no business being out there in the middle of nowhere. Alex thinks it’s an error, until her other detector starts picking up similar signals too, short bursts of radio that have Alex’s heartbeat racing in anticipation.

It makes no sense. It can’t possibly mean- No species, not even any in the extensive database documented by the Kryptonians, are known to live here. There has to be some more mundane reason, some routine stellar activity to explain this.

Still, Alex’s hands shake just a little, as she plugs in a more precise detector. She’s punching in the calibrations, when her time for beginning the return journey beeps.

“Dammit!”

Alex looks between the detector and timer, torn. On the one hand, what’s to say the signals will still be here, when she returns? What if this is a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime chance?

The timer turns red, and necessity wins out. Cursing, Alex puts away the detector, and begins the long journey back.

She’s not stymied by the setback for long, though. A few sleepless nights later, she’s worked out a shorter route to where she had first encountered the signals, to buy her a few more hours to search for the source of them. That very next day, she requests the rest of the week off, and prepares for her trip like a woman on a mission. She pores over all the prior research, every star chart of the area she can get her hands on, every photo that satellites venturing out there had sent back. Nothing gives her a satisfactory answer for the signals she’d encountered, not even after a discreet inquiry sent in the direction of the LCorp headquarters. 

It is then that the scientist in Alex awakens with a vengeance, and she sets out on her seventh journey, shaking with excitement rather than nerves.

Halfway through the trip, as she streaks past asteroids and planets at a speed she could never have dreamed of, it occurs to Alex that her life has taken paths she could never have expected, all because a scared little girl had showed up at her family’s doorstep two decades ago.

She had been something else, before then, and she’s something entirely different now. Something impossible rather than improbable, because this is a future that had existed outside of the realm of anything that a human could expect.

It’s fitting, then, that on this trip, when she finally tracks down the source of the signals, Alex discovers not the improbable, but the impossible. 

For there, on the asteroid from which the bursts of radio signals are being broadcasted, sits a domed city.

Impossible, yet real, and so familiar that Alex gapes at it, wondering if she’s dreaming. Because she’s seen this city before, in wistful paintings by her sister. Kara has told her about this skyline, has told her about that bridge spanning the two judicial courts, the giant telescope on the top of the science guild’s headquarters, and that spherical building where the High Council regularly meets. 

This city is no strange Atlantis. She knows exactly what it is.

Alex doesn’t fly down to inspect it further, or try to break through the forcefield dome surrounding the city. Instead, she immediately flies back, speeding through the meteors and satellites and the endless vacuum, until her power almost gives out. She re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at a speed that should have burned any normal human up, landing right on the edges of the DEO’s desert base. Even then, she doesn’t stop, entering the building at a dead run, skidding into the operations room where she knows that J’onn and Kara would be having their biweekly meeting with Lucy.

“Agent Danvers, what is the meaning of this?” J’onn barks, but Alex is racing past him and skidding to a stop in front of her sister, heedless of everyone watching.

“Argo City!” she gasps out. “Oh my god, Kara... it survived!”

* * *

 

**Astra |** _ Changed for good _

Astra hears the news from a tear-streaked and babbling Kara, whom storms into the warehouse in the middle of the night, and throws herself into Astra’s arms, babbling about a city floating on an asteroid, and Alura, and-

In the end, there are only two things that Astra processes through her shock. 

Argo has survived. Her sister is alive.

She realizes then, that all their lives are about to change forever.

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ We might be worlds apart _

Alex’s life changes sooner than anyone else’s.

“I’m thinking of going to live in Argo City, with Mom.” Kara tells her, a few months later, on a night that should have been like any other sister night, except for that confession.

Alex should have known it was coming, from the moment that they had discovered that Argo survived, but it still blindsides her to hear the words.

“You, um, you-” she starts, trying to work around the pizza that’s suddenly sitting like a stone in her mouth, unable to swallow it because her stomach feels like it’s bottoming out.

“It won’t be permanent!” Kara assures her, hastily. “At least, I don’t think... um. It’s just, I really want to see her more often, and my friends, and-”

Her voice dies away, and Alex finally swallows, though the bite of the pizza sinks like a stone all the way down.

“Right.” she says.

Kara looks at her with concern, and Alex manages to smile. Kara deserves this. After everything she’s lost in the past two years, of course she deserves this one thing. Alex has no right to ask her sister to stay, when her mother and every person she ever knew from Krypton would be on the other side of that argument.  

So she smiles, and says the right words that Kara wants to hear, and that night she ratchets the levels of her kryptonite bracelets up, and punches a bag at the gym until the stuffing falls out. It hurts, it hurts like a bitch, but it still hurts less than the thought that Kara might leave her again.

She stumbles home from the gym, exhausted. At least, she thinks she’s home, but when she reaches to open the door, she realizes that she’s flown to the warehouse instead. Alex staggers in, too tired to think about it. 

“Alex!”

Alex starts at the noise, and sways on her feet, and then warm hands are encircling her, steadying her.  _ Astra. _

“Alexandra, you’re hurt.”

“Astra,” Alex murmurs, sinking into the hold, and the name sounds like a prayer to her tired ears.  _ Astra. Astra. Astra. _

“What happened? Who did this?” Astra’s voice isn’t alarmed, just calm and vengeful.

“No one,” Alex says. “I was just-” she waves a hand vaguely “-out.”

“What?” Astra sounds confused, now, before understanding and concern takes over. “What happened? Why would you do this to yourself?”

Alex can only shake her head, aware that her face is suddenly wet. She blinks the tears away, shaking her head violently again, and that’s when everything goes black.

* * *

 

She wakes up in what she thinks to be a bed at first, with a soft voice murmuring above her.

“I really am sorry, you know.”

Alex blinks when she hears Astra’s low voice, but doesn’t shift. She snuggles back against her pillow instead, very content to not face the unpleasant reality waiting for her when she wakes up.

“For ever letting you get hurt, because of me,” Astra continues, still in a murmur.

She sounds as if she’s talking to herself, continuing a conversation thread that she’d started before Alex had woken up. Alex murmurs a wordless reply, and sighs as she feels fingers playing with her hair, lifting the strands up and then letting them freefall. 

It’s only when she snuggles contentedly back into the pillow, does Alex realize it’s not a pillow at all, that’s a human body she’s reclining against, and those are arms encircling her, not bed sheets.

“What was the point of saying I wanted to save humans, when I couldn’t even stop one from getting hurt?”

“It’s fine,” Alex replies blearily, sinking back into her. “‘M full-time Kryptonian now, remember?”

“Full-time idiot, too.” the sharp retort comes back. “Why do you keep doing things like this to yourself?”

“You don’t get to tell me that,” Alex says, more lucid now, as Astra’s words dig into her conscience. “Who was the idiot that turned her back on a kryptonite sword?”

Extended silence.

“Sorry,” Alex mumbles. “If I could go back in time and change what happened that night, I would. You know that, don’t you?”

“Alex, why are you saying these things?”

“Because I need you to know that,” Alex says, and she can feel her eyes blurring with tears again. “I don’t want to hurt you, either. You know that, right?”

“Alex,  _ what  _ is wrong?” Astra sounds downright worried, compared to her usual devil-may-care tone. “I’m calling Kara.”

“No!” Alex digs her fingers into Astra’s shirt, holding her tighter. “I can’t talk to Kara right now. I might scream, I might yell, I know I’ll say unfair things. Just let me stay here, for now.”

“What is it? Did you two have a fight?”

Alex shakes her head, and burrows back in. She’d driven Maggie away, and then Ruby had left, and now her sister, the one constant in her life since high school, is going to leave her.

And then, another realization out of the blue, so obvious that she should have realized it before, takes Alex’s breath away.

Astra is going to leave her, too.

As soon as she makes up with Alura, as soon as they let her back in, Astra is going to leave for Argo City.

Alex holds Astra tighter, trying really fucking hard to forget that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Astra |** _ How many times must I bury you? _

“You should meet Mom,” Kara says abruptly, during her visit one night.

Astra sighs and looks at her niece, who looks fuller in the face these days, and somehow  _ brighter _ , as if there’s a miniature sun shining from her body out of sheer happiness.

“Little One,” she starts, feeling her way through these uncharted waters with a tentativeness that’s new, “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

She feels a strange nausea overtake her body as she speaks, that of desperate loss warring with desperate fear. On the one hand, the chance to see Alura again, to actually hold her, solid and warm and  _ alive. _ On the other hand, the very real possibility of one final rejection from her sister, that would separate the two of them forever. 

“She’s changed,” Kara says. “Aunt Astra, please, talk to her. She’s not the woman you remember.”

That simply drives the loss in even sharper, accompanied by grief for how a desperate situation with desperate choices had changed them all so much.

“Does she know that I’m alive?”

Kara bites her lips. “I told her that Fort Rozz survived. I didn’t tell her any more than that, and she hasn’t asked. I think she’s afraid to ask, in case you’re-”

She stops, looking uncertain again. Astra shakes her head.

“She would not want to meet me, Kara. Alura has moved on. She has a new life now, and a new city to watch over.”

“How can you say that?” Kara cries.

Astra looks away, unable to face the accusation in her niece’s eyes, but also unable to lie. “Easily, Kara.”

But, instead of berating her for her lack of faith, Kara steps closer. Astra feels warm arms encircling her, and her niece’s voice, full of confidence, reverberating against her shoulder.

“Please, just think about it. She’ll want to see you, I promise.”

* * *

 

And, without meaning to, Astra does find herself thinking about it. She finds herself thinking about it day and night, until it seems to be all her brain focuses on, when she’s not working or with Kara or Alex. Even then, the stray thoughts of doubt and indecision filter in through her concentration, making her distracted at inopportune times.

“Astra!” Alex says one night, slapping the table between them, on which a set of playing cards are arrayed. “It’s your turn.”

“Oh, yes.” Astra blinks to refocus, and stares down at the cards in her hand, before playing one perfunctorily.

“What’s up with you?” Alex asks, eyeing her. “That’s three turns you’ve almost missed.”

Astra raises her eyebrows.

“You should have used that opportunity to get ahead,” she comments, scanning the discard pile. “Seeing as I’m currently... how do you say it... kicking your ass.”

“I’ll actually kick your ass if you don’t stop gloating,” Alex grumbles, as she draws another card. “But, seriously, what’s up?”

Astra sighs. “Kara thinks that I should meet with Alura.”

When there’s no reply to this, she looks up, to see Alex frowning at her own hand of cards.

“What do you think?” Astra prompts her, suddenly eager to know her thoughts, now that she has come clean with her own doubts.

Alex looks uncomfortable. “I don’t think that’s something for me to have a say in.”

“Of course it is,” Astra says, outraged. “You have never led me wrong.”

Alex is still frowning at her cards, as she plays another hand. “What’s stopping you?”

“I think Kara is wrong,” Astra says. “Alura wouldn’t want to meet me, not after everything.”

“And what do you want?” Alex asks.

“Me?” Astra asks, a little surprised.

“I mean, do you want to meet her? It’s just, from everything you say, it doesn’t exactly sound like you had the greatest time, growing up in Argo City.”

“Alura was different,” Astra says. Suddenly, there’s a lump in her throat. “She was very different, right up until the end.”

She’s aware of Alex finally looking up, to study her. Alex doesn’t smile often, Astra knows, but she’s gotten used to her habitual neutral expression. It feels odd, now, to have Alex frowning at her, and it reminds Astra uncomfortably of their inauspicious beginning.

“Well?” she asks.

“If you want to meet her, you should,” Alex says, finally. “It kinda sounds like you do.”

“I don’t-”

“Astra, I’ve rarely known you to be indecisive,” Alex says, “If you really wanted to cut ties with Alura, I don’t think you’d be this hesitant about it.”

“And if she wants to cut ties with me?” Astra asks, throwing caution to the wind.

Alex shrugs. “She might, but you’ll still have... us. Earth, I mean.”

Astra frowns, confused at that, and somehow feeling that she and Alex are not talking about entirely the same thing.

“You think I should meet her?” she asks again, to clarify.

Alex looks strangely defeated, the usual light in her eyes dimmed, as she replies.

“Yes, you should meet her, Astra.”

* * *

 

**Astra |** _ Reconciliation _

Even after making the decision to see her sister again, it takes Astra an uncharacteristically long time before she actually allows Kara to arrange the first meeting. On Krypton, Alura had always been the constant reminder of her youth, the one person who could make Astra feel as happy and carefree as a child, no matter what she had faced. Now, it seems she brings back all the indecisiveness Astra had felt when younger, too. leaving her on tenterhooks until the day of the meeting arrives.

Even on the day of the meeting, when Astra steps into the bridge of the ship that had been deemed neutral territory between Earth and Argo, she still doesn’t know what to expect from her sister. Coldness, most realistically. At best, she hopes for polite standoffishness. Alura had always been more of a stickler for decorum than her. 

She doesn’t expect Alura to walk down the stairs, take one tearful look at her, and set off at a dead run, throwing off every guard in her way to fly into Astra’s arms, sobbing into her hair just as Kara has done many times before.

“ _ I thought you’d have forgotten me, by now. _ ” Astra murmurs in Kryptonese, stunned, into the flying mass of hair currently obstructing her face.

“ _ Never. _ ” Alura says, voice hitching in between breaths, as she continues to sob against her shoulder, and her arms curl around Astra even tighter. “ _ Not for a single day, Astra. _ ”

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ On the verge of almost _

It’s clear to Alex that Astra is ecstatic. She tries to be subdued about it, talking cryptically about bridges to be mended, and other things that would take time, but it’s obvious that she’s thrilled over her renewed relationship with Alura. It shows in the way she holds herself lighter, and the way her smiles come more easily, whenever her sister visits. Whatever bad blood there’d been between the two of them, it’s clear that it’s not enough to take away the supreme happiness of seeing her sister again. And, even if Astra might be reticent, Alex hears all about the twins from an exuberant Kara, who seems to have come out happiest of them all over the reconciliation of her mother and her aunt.

As for Alex, she... retreats. Kara’s mother does make overtures of friendship to her, but she finds herself reluctant to reciprocate, for more reasons than she’s willing to name. She keeps to herself, and if Kara is off visiting Argo more and more often, if Astra tends to be away more often than not when she visits the warehouse, well. That’s none of her business, now. 

Which is fine, Alex tries to tell herself. She’d always known that it would end up like this. It’s not like this is any different from when Clark had visited, after that bastard had finally deigned to pay Kara some attention.

She’s at the DEO when that stray thought enters her head, and Alex almost puts a fist through the report she’s supposed to be reading.

Because it  _ is _ different now, of course. Then, it had just been an inattentive cousin. Then, Kara had stayed. Now, with Alura in the picture, Alex is sure of nothing.

She keeps her thoughts in check, though, until she storms into her apartment one night after a long and grimy stakeout mission, to find Astra pacing the length of the living room, as if she’s been waiting there for quite some time.

“There you are.” she says, looking around as Alex skids to a stop in surprise. “You don’t usually come home this late.”

“And you’re not supposed to be back on Earth until next week.” Alex says, “Aren’t you supposed to be at some big council hearing with Alura?”

At her words, Astra’s lips curl into a smile that possibly intends to be fond, but which just comes across as condescending. Alex finds herself instinctively stiffening, in response.

“It wrapped up earlier than expected.” Astra says, her smile fading away as Alex remains stony. “Therefore, I am early. And you are late.”

Alex drinks the sight of her in, well aware that she’s staring, but also unable to look away. Because, she hasn’t seen her in more than a week, and well, Astra isn’t looking away either, and maybe Alex should stop reading too much into these things before she gets her heart dashed against a wall again.

“You know there’s no regular hours when I’m on a field mission.” she says.

Astra keeps staring at her, as if trying to gauge something, but Alex is as much a master of her emotions as the general, when she needs to be. She clenches her jaw and maneuvers around her, to snag a drink from the kitchen table. Just water - she does learn, if slowly - to loosen her suddenly dry mouth, but also to give her something to do that doesn’t involve making small talk with Astra.

She remembers how easy it had been, in the warehouse, for them to sit side by side and talk, or argue, or even just read together in silence. Remembers, too, how she had taken all that for granted, before Argo and Alura, before the gaping hole of loss that seems to have opened up in her chest.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Astra says, turning on the spot to keep Alex in her line of sight, even as Alex tries to dodge it. “I haven’t seen you in some time, Alex.”

Just the name, the way it falls so easily from her lips, makes Alex squeeze her eyes shut for a moment, before she can master herself again.

“Because you’re been so busy visiting Argo City every week.” she says, trying to keep her tone as light and neutral as possible. “Having fun there?”

She relents when she turns to see Astra eyeing her with a confused and slightly dejected air.

“Welcome back.” she says, starting over in a softer voice, even though it takes everything out of her to manage that. “How was the latest trip?”

“It was alright.” A brief but brilliant smile flies over Astra’s face, embellishing her understated words. “Alura showed me the guest room she’s built for me to stay in, in her house. She left a custom-built chess board for me, there. I think Kara must have told her I love the game.”

Alex bites her tongue, and takes another sip of her water.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about then?” she asks.

Astra eyes her oddly again, before answering.

“I need you to watch the plants at the warehouse for me,” she says. “I will be gone for some time, for my next visit. I would ask Kara-”

“Except that she’s busy visiting Argo, too.” Alex finishes, her voice still managing to be even.

“The situation is tense, at the moment,” Astra says. “Not everyone in the High Council is in favour of the bilateral treaty with Earth, and Kara’s position as the go-between is ... not an enviable one, to say the least.”

“Right.” Alex says dully. 

Who cares about envy? She just misses her sister.

“Alex-”

“It’s fine.” Alex says, speaking to the kitchen table. “I get it. I’ll take care of the damn plants.”

It’s strange. She has been expecting this. She’s been expecting Astra to leave ever since she first reconciled with Alura, and yet it still hurts. Alex still feels like something has been brutally ripped away from her, as if she’s already lost Astra, before she ever had her. 

Which, she finally admits to herself, now that all hope is gone, is the real problem here. That she has always been obsessed with the woman, even before they really knew each other, has been drawn to her and yet resisted the draw, like a moth that knew that it would eventually get burned. That Astra is, was, and never will be, anything associated with Alex Danvers. Alex might harbour delusions of attachment to her, but Astra has always valued the ties of blood that bind her to Alura, and to Argo, in ways that she could never hope for.

It’s crushing. Even if she’s known it all along, admitting it to herself is still crushing.

“Alura also wants to include a travel agreement between Argo and Earth, open to any country that wants to join it, along with the trade treaty.” Astra continues, oblivious. “Oliv- your president is in agreement, and has asked me to work Alura in sorting the details out. That’s why I need to stay there for so long.”

“Right.” Alex says, suddenly wishing that the water in her hands is something stronger, an urge that hasn’t plagued her in months.

Astra eyes her oddly again. “Are you sure you’re not ill?”

“I’m fine.” Alex says.

She’s not fine. She wants a whole damn bottle of whatever the strongest thing is that M’gann stocks, wants to down it all in one fatal go, or smash it against the wall.

_ Fuck.  _ Deep breaths. She can do this.

“Well,” Astra starts again, after a doubtful pause. “Alura thinks that I should stay with her until the entire-”

Nope. Nope nope nope. She can’t do this.

“Stop it.” Alex chokes out. 

She slams the drink back down on the table so hard that she’s surprised the glass doesn’t shatter. Her fingers are digging into her palm, and she’s aware of Astra staring at her in surprise, but she’s past caring.

“Stop it.” she repeats, blinking fast to stave off tears. “I don’t want to hear what Alura thinks, or what the Council does, I don’t want to hear any of it, alright?”

Astra is staring at her with slightly parted lips, seemingly torn between outrage and shock.

“I don’t understand.”

Alex grabs her hand, pulls her in, and kisses her hard.

She’s aware of Astra letting out a surprised noise against her mouth and freezing, before warm lips open against Alex’s, sliding over them with an uncharacteristic timidity. Alex kisses her back harder, as if that would wipe the uncertainty and surprise away, but that only causes Astra to retreat.

“Alex, I don’t understand.” she repeats, still so close that her breath unfurls against Alex’s cheeks, warm in the chilly night air.

“No.” Alex retreats, stung. “You don’t get to say anything.”

Astra’s mouth twists downward in a thin and unhappy line. “Anything about what?”

“Nothing.” Alex says, seeking out her mouth again, because she doesn’t want to talk or think, she just wants to prolong this moment before reality intrudes again.

“I think not.” Astra says, leaning back even as Alex moves forward. “Alex, what-”

“Shut up.” Alex orders, voice hoarse.

She pulls Astra back to her too fast, loses her balance, and flails, falling precariously backwards into the couch.

“Oof.”

Before she can right herself, Astra is climbing on top her in two easy strides. Her weight bears down on Alex, warm and comforting and perfect, so perfect that Alex forgets the situation, until Astra speaks again.

“Alex, I want to-”

Alex shuts her up by kissing her again. She rakes her fingers through long locks of hair until the words die and Astra is moaning into her mouth. It’s like every guilty dream she’s entertained at night, except better, because Astra is real and  _ there _ and she’s kissing Alex back just as desperately.

When they break apart again, there’s nowhere left to hide, and Alex finds herself staring into stormy green eyes, that look just as conflicted as she feels.

“What was that?” Astra asks, staring down at her.

She’s still breathing heavily, but the surprise and confusion are rapidly fading away from her eyes, replaced with a knowing glint that makes dread sink into Alex’s stomach.

“Fuck.” she says, except it comes out really quiet, and kind of miserable.

“It’s alright, Alex.” 

Astra is smiling, that rare crinkly smile that transforms her face, and Alex wants to  _ scream _ .

“No, it’s not.” she says, because it’s not alright, now she’s ruined everything. “How can you not see that?”

“What don’t I see?” Astra looks determined, and her hands grip Alex’s arms tightly, as if to steady her.

Alex, tired and weak from a lack of appetite and sleep, still struggles against the hold, too angry to just give in.

“Enough.” Astra grits out, as she struggles against her. “What is wrong with you?”

“As if you care.” Alex hisses. “Go back to your perfect sister, and your perfect city, and  _ leave. me. alone. _ ”

“Perfect?” Astra gapes, and then her gaze turns furious. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to think,” Alex says, swiping some treacherous stray tears away from her cheek. “You do one thing that makes me think one way, and then another thing that makes me think I’m completely mistaken, until I don’t know what to think anymore.”

She takes advantage of Astra’s slackened grip to move away, still feeling utterly humiliated, and even angrier at Astra for making her feel that way.

Astra looks horrified at the tears.

“I did not-”

Alex shakes her head, as she comes closer.

“Don’t, Astra. Just... don’t.”

She turns on her heel as fast as she can, disappearing before Astra can follow her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Alex |** _ Yes, I was dying when we met _

In the end, Alex ends up flying only to the rooftop of her apartment, and of course, Astra figures that out soon enough. Alex gets only a few minutes of peace, before she hears footsteps steadily padding up the five flights of stairs from her apartment level to the roof. Then, there’s a single rap on the roof hatch, sharp and precise.

“Alex, I know you’re there.”

Alex ignores the voice, and glares out at the dark city.

That just sets off a series of louder knocks, and then, “Open the door.”

“Go away, Astra.”

“I will not!” Astra shouts back, and Alex blinks. Astra  _ never _ shouts. “Open the door!”

She’s outright banging against the door now, as if she thinks she can break it down with strength alone, and Alex is pretty sure that the apartment manager is going to come up to investigate the noise, soon. She stalks over and wrenches the roof hatch open, finding herself glaring into equally angry green eyes.

Astra climbs out without a word, the sunlight playing on her arms’ muscles as she lifts herself up, in a way that has Alex’s throat feeling tight again. It’s like she can never stop staring at Astra, even at the worst possible moment, even when she tries so hard not to.

“You know, I have always thought of you as the brave one, out of the two of us.” Astra’s words are quiet and introspective, when she speaks, in contrast to the anger that Alex had seen in her eyes.

Alex stares at her, and gets a feeble half-smile in return.

“Do you know why I came back early, this time?” Astra asks. “Alura wanted me to stay longer, because the Council wanted to hold another round of hearings with me, but I missed Earth. I missed all the places that I have gotten used to visiting, all the people I have met, and most of all-” she reaches out, touching Alex’s arm for a fleeting moment, before retreating - “I missed you.”

Alex swallows and looks down, to avoid the intensity of her gaze, but a soft hand against her jaw tilts her face up.

“You kissed me.” Astra says, and there’s a note of wonder in her voice.

Alex blinks, and Astra blinks right back at her, surprise and marvel suffusing her face.

“Yeah.” Alex says, and she smiles a bit, because it’s funny to see Astra caught off guard, no matter how miserable the situation. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

Astra keeps staring at her for what seems like ages, before leaning in and aligning their lips together again, softly, sweetly. Alex drags a hand up and holds her in place, clinging to the warmth of her like a lifeline. Astra kisses her gently, like she’s still somehow wary of being rebuffed, but Alex kisses her back harder, like her life depends on it. She clutches at Astra, realizing she’s gripping too hard when the other woman grunts, and releases her to step back, chastened.

“I’m sorry.” she says. “I’m happy for you, I really am, but I can’t just-”

Astra might find her brave, but Alex’s courage gives out right then, frayed tight as it has been over the events of the night. Words, never her greatest friends to begin with, fail her, so she lets her mouth speak in other ways, bringing Astra in for a kiss again, softer this time. She maps her lips over Astra’s face and jaw, as if they could somehow spell out  _ Don’t go _ and  _ Please don’t leave me _ , if she just tries hard enough.

“ _ Alex _ .” Just her name, choked out, like Astra is having trouble breathing.

Alex mumbles back a nonsensical reply, miserable and elated by turns, elated at what she’s getting to do, miserable at what has brought them here. She traces every curve and plane of Astra with her hands, sinking into soft skin and angling over hard planes, as if to catalogue every bit to her memory. She wants to touch every part of her, beyond skin and bone and clothes, wants to becoming tangled up in Astra’s very essence, until she’s unable to figure out how to let go.

“ _ Alex.” _ A final gasp, and then Astra is holding both her hands firmly, gripping hard enough that Alex stills and looks up her, at which point a soft kiss is pressed against her palm, as if in apology for the rough treatment. “Alex, enough.”

Alex nods, and looks down.

“I know I should let you go.” she says. “Kara was so happy to see Alura again, and I know she’ll be even happier with you there, too. But, I can’t lose both of you, Astra. Why would you even want to go to Argo?”

She hates them, the Kryptonians who had called their planet a utopia, but treated aberrations like Astra so badly that she had joined the military just to flee their society. She hates them for their carelessness, she hates them for leaving Kara without a home, and most of all, she hates them for showing up when they please, and taking every person she loves away from her.

“Why would you want to go there?” she repeats.

The question has an obvious answer, of course. Because Alura is there, and so is Kara and-

Alex shakes her head, realizing any argument she can make is futile, in light of that.

“Do you want me to stay?” Astra asks.

Alex sighs, and throws caution to the wind.

“Yes,” she confesses, frowning fiercely at the ground, as if it’s somehow responsible for the tears blurring up her eyes. “I know it’s selfish, but I can’t just shut up and pretend that I’m okay with you leaving.”

“I have thought about leaving,” Astra admits. “About going where I thought home was.”

Alex screws her eyes shut, but Astra is tilting her face up again. Alex looks up just in time to see a grimace flit across her face.

“The truth is, Alex, it was never my home.” she says. “I’ve never belonged in a place like Argo, and even if Alura loves me, she doesn’t trust me any more than the other councillors do. Not yet, at least.”

“But, you went there.” Alex murmurs. “You stayed.”

Astra shakes her head.

“I visit for my sister’s sake.” she says. “But being back there, walking among her people-” 

She shakes her head and shifts closer to Alex, so that their bodies are almost touching. Alex can feel heat pulsating from her, like she really is a star.

“All it showed me was that I’d been holding onto an ideal that only ever existed in my head. After Krypton was destroyed, I clung to every positive memory of it, choosing to forget that there have always been things that made me uncomfortable there. Alura might have convinced the High Council to save Argo, but they’re as shortsighted and careless as ever. I’ll never belong in Argo, and more importantly, every moment there would just remind me of the real home that I’ve made here.”

She smiles at Alex, tentative but wide. “A home that you are a large and inescapable part of.”

Alex stares at her, and then back at the ground.

“It’s just, you’ve been away a lot recently,” she says, biting her lip. “I thought... I thought you were getting ready to move on permanently.”

“I’ve been forced to visit more often because of the pending treaty,” Astra says. “The fact that your country harbours me is one of the last points of concern the High Council has, before ratifying it. I’ve had to attend hearing after hearing, in trying to help Alura in setting their fears at ease.”

Alex sighs, taking her hand again.

“So it’s not forever?”

“Forever in Argo?” Astra asks, grimacing. “I’d rather have you run me through with a sword again.”

She seems to soften, when she sees Alex flinch. “You know, Kara has been missing you, too. She loves spending time with Alura, but I can see her chafing at her ambassadorial duties by the end of every week that she visits, because she can’t wait to come back to you, and to her friends. I think my niece has found, too, that the memories she has of Argo doesn’t quite line up with the reality of it.”

Alex smiles weakly, and blinks away more tears as they well up.

“Do you think it’ll be worth it all? The treaty, I mean.”

“Don’t you?” Astra asks. “I think both our worlds have a lot to learn from each other. You can judge for yourself, when you get the chance to visit Argo. Alura thinks they’ll have use for someone with your scientific mind, if you want to help.”

“Me?” Alex gapes. “But I’m not... I mean, compared to Kryptonian scientists, I’m not exactly on their level.”

“I think you’re precisely the level of scientist they need.” Astra says, lips thinning. “It will be a novel change for Alura, I think, to work with someone who can actually get something accomplished, instead of endlessly debating about ethics.” 

Alex smacks her shoulder absentmindedly, a weak swat that makes Astra smirk.

“We’ll see,” she murmurs. “Is your sister okay with you not staying?” 

“Alura is aware that I was never particularly... accepted by the guilds in the way she was.” Astra says, and Alex’s heart breaks, because how much neglect is the usually incisive Astra hiding under those glib words? “She knows I would never be happy, there. There’s a reason I joined the spacefleet, even back on Krypton.”

“Earth doesn’t have a spacefleet,” Alex says, nonsensically.

Astra reaches out and tucks a stray piece of hair away behind her ear.

“True. But, it has you.”

Alex blinks rapidly again.

“Shut up,” she mumbles.

Astra watches her pensively.

“It was easy,” she says, all of a sudden.

Alex stares at her. “What?”

“My powers, the invincibility... giving it all up for you was easy,” Astra says, staring at her, or perhaps through her. “Even though we meant nothing at all to each other.”

Alex’s face must have fallen, because she looks instantly remorseful.

“I mean back then, Alex,” she says. “Not now.”

Alex grips her hand tighter, sliding her fingers in between Astra’s own. “What’s that got to do with us now, then?”

“Only that it was easy,” Astra says. “It was easy to face the fact that I could die, because I was really only living for Kara. She was the only one who cared whether I lived or died, and when your life hung in the balance, I knew that even she would rather have you alive than me.”

Alex screws her eyes shut, imagining the idea of Astra dying again, remembering the way the sword had gone clean through her flesh and bone, without snagging once. She flinches at the mere memory.

“Don’t,” she says, her throat so tight that she has to fight just to get that single word out.

“But, it’s different now,” Astra says, insistently. “I need you to understand that.  _ You _ made it different. I was already dead, that night on the rooftop, long before you put that sword through me. I was dead inside, and even Kara didn’t see that, but you did, somehow. I hurt you, and you gave me another chance to live anyway. And now, I’ve built a home here, and met many people to love, and it’s all because of you. You’re the reason my home exists, Alex.”

Alex doesn’t even bother trying to hide her tears, this time. She just steps forward, and buries her face into Astra’s shirt, sniffling.

“I’m just glad you’re not leaving forever.”

“Of course not,” Astra says, before her voice turns teasing. “Although...”

As Alex leans back to stare at her, her smile curls into something wicked. 

“If you  _ want  _ to spend a few more minutes convincing me why I should hurry back instead of dawdling, I’m open to listen to arguments. Your hands were being very persuasive a few minutes ago, if I remember correctly.”

“Pervert,” Alex huffs, before reaching up and framing Astra’s face with her hands. “You’re really staying. With us.”

“With you,” Astra says, with a particular inflection on the second word. “Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“With me,” Alex repeats, suddenly wanting to cry outright.

“Of course.” Astra’s lips curve. “There really aren’t as many people as interesting as you to talk to, Agent Danvers, anywhere in the universe.”

“Nah.”

“Yeah,” Astra retorts, pronouncing the word precisely, and kisses her again.

* * *

 

**Alex |** _ She likes this better than fighting _

In the end, bureaucracy being what it is regardless of species, Astra ends up being tied up in Argo City for almost two months, the entirety of which Alex spends on tenterhooks. She stays late at work to distract herself from the anxiety, until J’onn chivvies her home or - during the weeks when Kara is home - when her sister drags her away.

“Stop worrying,” Kara groans from the other side of the couch, on one such night, as she stuffs the last pizza slice into her mouth.

Alex glances away from the screen, surprised, to see her sister looking at her with half fondness and half exasperation.

“ _ Rao _ , I can practically hear your anxiety from over here.”

“I’m not worrying about anything,” Alex says, turning back to the TV screen, and hoping she looks sufficiently interested in what’s playing out on  _ Westworld _ . “I haven’t got, I mean-”

She peters off, crossing her arms and huffing.

“Uh-huh,” Kara says.

Alex throws a stray slice of mushroom at her. 

“Ok, smartass,” she says, “How was the visit?”

“It’s getting more interesting, at least,” Kara says, with a sigh. “I got to tour the new science guild’s headquarters this time around, and that was a lot more interesting than having to attend Council meetings all day. I’ll be glad when this treaty business dies down, to be honest.”

Alex snorts.

“Imagine if the councillors could hear you now,” she says. “The ambassador from the great house of El, whining about meetings.”

She scooches closer to Kara and jostles her with her shoulder, to let her know she’s just teasing. For all that Kara whines about her ambassadorial duties, she knows that her sister takes them seriously, deep down. It feels like a kind of honor, strangely, that Alex is the one confidante to Kara’s complaints about them.

Kara simply hugs her cheerfully in return, so tight that Alex releases a fake grunt of pain.

“I missed you too, grumpy,” she says, when she finally releases Alex. “I can’t wait until you can come visit, too.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Alex says, noncommittally. “We’ll see.”

In truth, now that she’s sure that her two favorite Kryptonians won’t be leaving her, she’s begun to see Argo in a new, and more positive, light. The prospect of visiting it isn’t so gut-churning as it once used to be. From a purely scientific point of view, it’s even exciting.

“And your aunt?” she asks, trying to keep her voice casual. “How’s she doing?”

When there’s an extended silence after her question, she looks away from the screen, to see Kara watching her with an amused and knowing look.

“My aunt,” she says, snorting. “Like you suddenly forgot her name.”

Alex freezes.

“Don’t worry,” Kara says, because she can’t even formulate a reply. “Mom’s got you listed in the first group to get a visa processed, once an agreement goes through. Then the two of you can come and go as you like.”

She says “the two of you” significantly, still staring, and Alex resists the urge to squirm.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk to Kara about it; she’s never kept anything from her sister. It’s not even that she’s afraid of getting a bad reaction, at this point. But some part of her, that’s used to things going bad at the drop of a hat, wants to keep this to herself, for now. Above all, what she has with Astra feels too... precious, to share easily. Like it’ll get jinxed, and crumble away like dust, if she’s careless with shouting it out to the world.

“If you want to know,” Kara says finally, seeming to take pity on her, “Astra mostly keeps to herself, or to Mom. I think she’s having a lot of fun, though.”

“Yeah?” Alex asks, trying not to sound too eager or anxious. 

“Well, last I heard, she’s giving the High Council’s head of security a heart attack,” Kara says. “Mom gave her carte blanche to test the city’s defenses, and my aunt has been breaking into all the government buildings just to prove a point to the man that his safety protocols aren’t rigorous enough.”

“Oh no,” Alex says, feeling a migraine beginning to form. “She’s gonna get kicked out again, isn’t she?”

“Nah, she’ll be fine,” Kara says, breezily. “Lara likes her, and the High Council pretty much follows where Lara leads, these days.”

Alex sighs, her anxiety not particularly curbed, knowing Astra’s penchant for attracting trouble.

“I get why you’re worried, but you don’t have to be,” Kara says. “Astra can take care of herself. Although,  _ Rao _ knows Lena can take care of herself, but I still worry every time she gets on a plane, or arranges a press conference.”

She frowns, anxiety taking over her cheerful face for a moment, and Alex squeezes her bracingly.

“So, you know?” she asks, after a while.

“Kinda hard to miss, superhearing and all,” Kara says, and screws up her face. “You two weren’t exactly discreet, in the week leading up to her departure. Which reminds me, stick to her soundproof warehouse rather than your apartment, please.”

Alex shovels ice cream into her mouth, hoping it would counter the heat spreading across her cheeks. “Somebody kill me right now.”

Kara just laughs.

“Besides,” she says, “Astra talks about you so much that even Mom asked me if something’s going on.”

There’s silence as Alex digests that, feeling warmth spread through her at the casual remark.

“So... you’re ok with it?” she ventures.

“Well, you were supportive from the start, when I started dating Lena,” Kara says. Her tone is light, but with an undercurrent of depth hinting that there’s a lot more thought - and possibly, discussions - behind it. “It’d be pretty hypocritical of me to start kicking up a fuss, now.”

Alex sighs and sags, before looking up in the direction of where Argo would be, light years away but still the source of all her anxiety.

“She’ll be fine,” her sister murmurs, squeezing her again. “It’s the Argonians you have to worry for, silly.”

Alex snorts at that, and allows herself to sink into the hold, feeling more at peace in that moment than she can remember herself feeling for many years.

“On the other hand...” Kara’s voice takes on a thoughtful tone.

When Alex looks at her inquiringly, she’s wearing a curious smirk, not unlike Astra in her more mischievous moments.

“If you really want to see what she’s up to, maybe we can arrange something.”

* * *

 

**Astra |** _ These are what I have come for _

Of all the words that could be used to describe Astra, nervous hasn’t been one for many years. Neither her profession nor her internment in Fort Rozz had allowed breathing space for such a weakness.

Yet, on the day before she is due to leave Argo, she paces the length of her room in erratic strides, feeling unfamiliar flares of anxiety shooting through her nerves. It’s the day of the big speech, where the High Council is due to announce to the citizens of Argo their final decision on the pending treaty with Earth. Alura is going to be speaking, as is Lara and every other ranking member of the Council. For some reason, they’ve seen fit to order Astra to make an appearance as well, perhaps to assuage the citizens’ fears about her rehabilitation.

Astra rolls her eyes upwards at the very thought, before pacing again. Try as she might, she can’t seem to stop smoothing down her robes, or playing with her hair. She ties and unties the sash around her waist many times, before deciding to leave it on. She stares at the loose waves of her hair in the mirror,  wondering whether to put it up and tuck the white streak away from sight, before shaking her head. No, that won’t do. Hiding it will probably only draw more attention to it. Regardless, she’s forsaken hiding a long time ago.

Outside, she can hear Alura in the middle of her grand speech about the benefits of ratifying the treaty. Her sister has always been a good orator, even as a child, with the skill further refined by her time in the Thinker’s Guild. Astra can hear her skillfully weaving the history of Krypton with her hopes for Argo’s future, to paint a picture for the Argonians of what the treaty could lead to.

In a stray moment, when curiosity overtakes her nerves, Astra steps out into the balcony, and peers through a crack in the curtains. She feels another odd skip of her heart when she sees the size of the crowd, her sister facing them on the podium, like a one-woman dam. In a short time, Astra realizes, that will be her. A former criminal, addressing the citizens of Argo as if she’s one of them, demanding they listen to her proposition.

Astra exhales, and steps back out of sight. She looks at her hands, which threaten to shake, just a little. Has she truly become so weak, or is she simply out of practise? She remembers a time when something like this would have been second nature to her. Necessity had demanded it. Now, it seems that her time on Earth has eroded all that hard-won confidence.

“I’ve never seen you in robes before,” A voice comments, from slightly behind her. “They’re nice.”

Astra whirls around, startled, to see Alex surveying her with a slightly surprised face.

“Well, look at that.” she says, as Astra gapes. “I’ve finally learned how to sneak up on you.”

“Alex!” Astra stares, wondering for a moment if she’s dreamed this vision up in her anxiety. “But how... you are not...”

“Allowed to be in Argo?” Alex asks, as she trails off. “Kara snuck me in for today, as part of her ‘security detail’. Don’t worry, I won’t get caught.”

With two strides, Astra has her enveloped, hugging her tightly enough to lift the other woman a little off the ground.

“Couldn’t miss your big speech,” Alex says, smiling, when she pulls back.

Astra nods, manages a small smile, and smoothes down her robes again, feeling even more self-conscious now that Alex has called attention to them.

“Nervous?”

“Of course not,” she snaps, instinctively curling in on herself.

Comforting arms surround her from behind, as Alex tucks her face into the curve of Astra’s shoulders.

“Uh-huh.”

Astra sighs, and melts back into the hold, never able to resist the woman’s touch for long.

“And if I were?”

“Well, I could make you forget about it, for a while,” Alex says, nosing against the nape of her neck.

Astra feels her heartbeat picking up, in a pleasant way this time, even as she frowns back at the woman.

“I have a speech due in ten  _ dendahr _ , Alex.”

Kisses, gentle but full of promise, pressed against the column of her neck, in exactly the place that Alex knows will make her squirm. “So?”

Astra doesn’t make a protest at the kisses, nor at the hands curled around her waist and dragged up her body invitingly. On the contrary, she spins around and links eager fingers around Alex’s neck, stroking the soft tufts of hair tapering away at the back of her head.

“You were missed.” she murmurs, placing a soft kiss against already parted lips, brief but inviting. “Sorely.”

Alex smiles, as if she knows that already. “Tell me to stop.”

Astra sighs, as clever fingers sneak through the ties of her robes, and fiddle with the clasps, not quite undoing them yet.

“I thought-  _ mmh  _ \- I thought you did not take orders from me,” she manages.

“Do you want me to?” Alex asks, eyebrows raised teasingly.

Astra just watches her wide-eyed, as she moves back in for a kiss, landing a quick peck against her lips, and moving down to her jaw before Astra can reciprocate. 

“My sister is out there giving a speech that will move our two worlds forward into a new future together.” she says, getting the words out with some difficulty, because Alex’s lips are more distracting than any weapon she’s encountered in her entire life. “And you want us to do this.”

“Yep.” Alex says. She moves down to her neck, adding in intermittent nips that have Astra holding her breath to keep from making a louder noise. “You said yourself that this was just some PR bullshit.”

“Alex...”

“I barely got to see you for the past weeks.” Alex says, leaning back and staring at her with devastatingly effective pleading eyes. “I’m making up for it. Unless you’d rather go out there and join your sister early...”

She moves back at the last part, and Astra has snatched her back as quickly as if she still has Kryptonian reflexes, her arms curling around Alex’s waist posessively.

“You’re right. It’s a completely useless event,” she says, before kissing Alex more fully.

They have done this enough times now that there’s a practised ease with which Alex teases her way through the robes, but there’s still a wondering look on Alex’s face, that had been there the first time, when she makes contact with her skin.

“Missed this.” she murmurs, sinking into the curve of her shoulder again, while Astra just sighs in content. “Missed  _ you _ .”

“ _ Alex. _ ” Trying to keep her voice low, hands tightening around Alex’s waist from the effort of it.

“Love you.” Alex says in return, in a hushed voice, and Astra closes her eyes, feeling the dulcet tones over her, like a piece of herself returning after a long absence.

“Do you love me?” Alex asks against her ear, hot and low. “Tell me you love me.”

“Love... you.” Astra ekes out, in between pressing kisses to her jaw, her cheek, to every part of Alex that she can reach. “I love you, Alex. You know I do.”

“Yeah?” The slight uncertainty in Alex’s voice now just intensifies every emotion that Astra is feeling, until she feels raw, exposed inside out.

“Of course.” she replies, her voice reaching the same fever pitch as her kisses. “I don’t think I stopped thinking about you once, Alex, or missing you, your voice, your touch, the feel of you-”

She must have moaned, because Alex is kissing her full on the mouth, to swallow up the noise. Astra rakes apart her short hair in an effort to keep quiet, scrabbling at it from root to end in a way that has Alex exhaling into her mouth.

“Yes, like that, Astra,  _ fuck- _ ”

Astra feels shaky when she finally breaks away, before they go too far, before her self-control is entirely broken by the euphoria of having Alex with her again. When she feels a little steadier, Alex is still clinging to her, face hidden in Astra’s hair.

“I really missed this,” she’s whispering again. “Just the feel of you.”

Astra nods in silent agreement.

“It won’t be much longer, now that the agreement is all but tied up.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Alex says, in a voice of pure content, burrowing further against her. “Hey, Astra?”

“Yes?” 

“It sounds like Alura is winding down. She’ll be introducing you, soon.”

That has Astra standing to attention again, bringing Alex up with her.

“I must look terrible.” she says. “Alex, Alura will know!” 

Alex snorts. “Like she’ll care. She was practically intimating that you were my kept woman, the last time she visited.”

Astra sighs. “You’re right, forget Alura. Still, the others.”

“No, it’s fine.” Alex pats down Astra’s robes, and rubs at her lips and cheek, before running smoothing fingers through her hair. “There, you look fine.”

“Truly?”

“Yes,” Alex says. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be hiding in the audience. Just picture me naked, if you get nervous again.”

“Picturing you naked will not calm me down,” Astra deadpans, which only earns her a smug smirk.

“Well, if you finish your speech early enough before dinner, I can sneak back up here and we can take care of that.”

“Alex!” Only a little horrified, mostly amused, and more than ready to hold her to that offer as soon as the speech can be gotten over with.

“ _ And now, everyone, _ ” Alura’s voice sounds from the square outside, booming and proud in Kryptonese, “ _ I would like to welcome my sister, General Astra In-Ze, to speak about the sustainability technology sharing initiative. _ ”

“I think that’s your cue,” Alex says, assuming an entirely wicked expression, as she pats Astra’s lower back, making her jump and snarl, “Go get ‘em, champ.”

Before Astra does as instructed, she takes another lingering look back at Alex, somehow afraid that this unexpected vision would just vanish in the blink of an eye, as has so many other things from her life. 

“Of course I’ll be there,” Alex says, and then smiles, as if she understands Astra’s real question. “Always.”

Astra nods, pacified, and steps out into the light.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for Sralinchen for beta-ing this chapter.
> 
> And that's another WIP under the belt! :D Thanks so much to everyone who read this! :)

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lil something I wrote when I was dealing with some stuff. I kind of debated sharing it for a couple months now, on account of it being such a personal work, but it's just sitting there on my drive, so I might as well clean it up and post it. I hope you guys like it. Thanks for giving it a shot.
> 
> I should mention at this point, too, that this fic is obviously canon-divergent, on account of the survival of Astra. However, it will loosely follow or reference certain plot points in S2 and S3, but not S4 because the whole fic was outlined and the first draft was finished before S4 began.
> 
> Again, thanks so much to [Sralinchen](http://sralinchen.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this entire fic, and also for leaving me the cutest and kindest comments on the side to read :P Without her, this fic would literally not exist. Thanks so much, Sarah!


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